Book Analysis: The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass
Assignment 1: The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass
Section 1: Analyze Douglass’s biography based on his use of rhetorical devices. How does the way he writes his story better affect the audience? Focus on at least three different devise and the effects of each.
Fredrick Douglass retells his experience from being a slave for years in his narrative, The Life Of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave. Within the contexts of his narrative, Fredrick Douglass utilizes a copious amount of rhetorical devices in order to appeal to his audience more. To demonstrate, Douglass uses parallelism, paradox, and immense amounts of imagery.
One of the rhetorical devices often found in Fredrick Douglass’s narrative is parallelism. By altering the structure of his sentences, Douglass incorporates a sense of formality within his narrative through the sole usage of parallelism. Parallelism can be seen through an excerpt from his narrative, “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (Douglass 20). As a result, Douglass’s repetitive use of “no” in the quotation adds more of a drastic feeling and severity within the book as he enforces his assertiveness through parallelism.
Along with parallelism, contrast is also a common rhetorical device found within the narrative. While the audience is in the midst of reading the narrative, one can easily point out Douglass’s constant use of paradoxes. As Douglass describes his urge to be free and escape slavery, he states, “I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without hearing it” (Douglass 46). In response, Douglass describes how his new knowledge of literature and writing has sparked an urge in him become a free man and freedom was the only thing he could, see and hear as the though engulfed his mind.
Furthermore, Douglass is quite keen in incorporating vast amounts of imagery in order to appropriately explain his
Section 1: Analyze Douglass’s biography based on his use of rhetorical devices. How does the way he writes his story better affect the audience? Focus on at least three different devise and the effects of each.
Fredrick Douglass retells his experience from being a slave for years in his narrative, The Life Of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave. Within the contexts of his narrative, Fredrick Douglass utilizes a copious amount of rhetorical devices in order to appeal to his audience more. To demonstrate, Douglass uses parallelism, paradox, and immense amounts of imagery.
One of the rhetorical devices often found in Fredrick Douglass’s narrative is parallelism. By altering the structure of his sentences, Douglass incorporates a sense of formality within his narrative through the sole usage of parallelism. Parallelism can be seen through an excerpt from his narrative, “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (Douglass 20). As a result, Douglass’s repetitive use of “no” in the quotation adds more of a drastic feeling and severity within the book as he enforces his assertiveness through parallelism.
Along with parallelism, contrast is also a common rhetorical device found within the narrative. While the audience is in the midst of reading the narrative, one can easily point out Douglass’s constant use of paradoxes. As Douglass describes his urge to be free and escape slavery, he states, “I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without hearing it” (Douglass 46). In response, Douglass describes how his new knowledge of literature and writing has sparked an urge in him become a free man and freedom was the only thing he could, see and hear as the though engulfed his mind.
Furthermore, Douglass is quite keen in incorporating vast amounts of imagery in order to appropriately explain his