Narrative life of Frederick Douglass: Book report analysis

¶ … autobiographical work Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is a book which illustrates the many difficulties of slave life in the United States of America. The book tells of Douglass's horrific upbringing as a slave and his subsequent freedom. Being a former slave, Douglass has the authority to write his autobiography which encompasses his youth, upbringing, and adulthood after leaving slavery. His purpose is to use legitimate arguments which showcase how slavery as an institution is wrong. Throughout the book, Douglass makes parallels between his own plight and that of the other slaves in his position with the stories of Biblical times and all peoples who would suffer at the hands of their oppressors. Of the major themes discussed in the narrative are the horrors of slavery and also the hypocrisy of Christian people who claimed to be religious but were not opposed to using and abusing their fellow human beings.

One of the ways that slaveholders justified their ability to keep humans in bondage was by using the story of Ham. According to this legend, God cursed Ham and all of his descendants by marking them. Slave owners said that Africans were descendents of Ham and determined that their enslavement was permissible by God. Douglass criticizes this reasoning, partly because his father is white. If he is not descended from Ham on both sides, then why should he be cast with their lot as a whole? "If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters" (Douglass 2008,-page 19). The very beginning of the story deals with the hypocrisy of those who use religion to prove that they have the right to oppress others.

Later in life, Frederick Douglass was sent to new masters in the state of Maryland. Douglass's owner converted to the Methodist Church after attending a camp meeting. Up until this point, Douglass life with this set of masters had been markedly cruel and violent. They were not adverse to beatings and other acts of inhumanity. Frederick Douglass held hopes that a renewed faith would change his master's disposition and prohibit further acts of degradation. On the contrary, his new-found religion led the master to become even more hedonistic. "Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty" (Douglass 2008,-page 62). The master prayed all day and made himself into a pillar of the religious community and then committed acts of unspeakable cruelty. On one such occasion, "I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture -- 'He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes" (Douglass 2008,-page 63). Those who looked with disdain at his cruelty to slaves would do so silently for fear of reprisals.

With all that has been said, it would be easy to assume that Frederick Douglass saw all Christians as hypocrites who spoke one thing and then practiced another. This is not the case. After Douglass became educated himself and was able to read scripture, he came to understand the difference between the religiosity of these masters and of his own beliefs. "What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the 'slaveholding religion' of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of the land, and Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference -- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked" (Douglass 2008,-page 116). He came to understand that Christianity in and of itself was not evil, nor did it support the cruelty that these men saw in it. White men in the south used the Bible to justify their acts of inhumanity towards their fellow men. Douglass wrote:

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels…We have men-stealers for ministers, women whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow skin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus (2008,-page 116).