Frederick Douglass Was an Important

Frederick Douglass was an important figure of the 18th century American scene, from several points-of-view. On the one hand, his life experience as a slave in 18th century America has been important because of the complete evidence of the limits of endurance of the human kind. On the other hand, his writing skills and his success in this sense have been a lesson learned and a means of accounting some of the realities that affected the period.

One of the most important works of Frederick Douglass is "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas" in which he vividly presents the story of the traditional slave, that could have been any slave of the 18th century America. Of utmost importance, chapters X and XI are evidence for the atrocities that took place at the time as well as the way in which slaves, and in particular Douglass managed to cope with the status of being a slave, without however losing its humanity.

There are several feelings that can be extracted from the two chapters that have been properly described or induced by the author. One of the most important aspects artistically underlined by the author is the relation Douglass had with two of his owners. More precise, Auld and Covey represent the metamorphosis of evil from the perspective of the ill treatment each of them applied to Douglass. However, it must be pointed out that Douglass' feelings concerning the two did not emerge as a result of the personal nature of the two, but rather as a result of the significance of these two characters. More precisely, both owners resembled evil in the sense that both of them were slave owners. While one of them had the status that allowed him to have slaves; the other did not have slaves from birth but managed to acquire them and exploit them for working purposes.

The time spent at Covey working the fields, exhausted, and without any hope left, marked Douglass to a great extent. More precisely, as it is presented in the book, Douglass started inquiring on the possibility to even commit suicide because of the tremendous unhappiness he was living. At the same time, such sentiments did not only come from an exhausting, unequal, unfair, and inhuman way of living, but rather from a desperation felt when realizing that the power of the slave owners is so big that its exercise can transform a man into a slave.