Understanding

There are exceptions to every rule, even those that seem most ludicrous and unfair. When I was reading the next two chapters in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave this thought kept jumping into mind as Douglass narrated all the changes he lived through when he moved to Baltimore. As he explains in the novel, the rule in plantations and cities is interchanged: slaveholders in plantations were cruel and seldom could you find one that didn’t beat his slaves bloody. Slaveholders in the city on the other hand, were much better masters, mainly because they weren’t willing to receive “the odium attaching to the reputation of being a cruel master” (Page 46).  I was also shocked with Douglass’ outlook on his new life (which was more positive than I would expect it to be) when he was first told about his impending move to Boston. The use of logos in chapters five and six however, gave me the ultimate surprise; not only because this was the stem of rhetoric I thought would be used least (if at all) in a memoir about slavery, but because the memoir has been so centered on pathos up to this point (you can read about the use of pathos in the book in my previous blog post).  All in all, although very short, chapter’s five and six provided twenty minutes of good reading.

When Douglass discusses his change of homes and how little it affected him, he also discusses the difference between slaveholders in the plantations and slaveholders in the city. It makes sense that social pressure and what other people may think would tame the slave owners in the city. In Baltimore it was all a concept of image: no one wanted to be the slaveholder living right beside a slave less family who hears the cries of mistreated slaves. This social pressure is what Douglass thinks makes masters in the city kinder than they were in the plantations where no one could hear or see what happened to slaves. The exceptions to the rule in the cities are masters like Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, who mistreat their slaves beyond belief giving little thought to what others may think. The two slave girls that belonged to Mr. Hamilton were, according to Douglass, the most “mangled and emaciated creatures [he] ever looked upon” (Page 46). The youngest slave girl in the Hamilotns’ care was but fourteen years old and she was so mistreated that “she was oftener called “pecked” than by her name” (Page 47).  The exception in the plantations on the other hand was Master Daniel Lloyd, who Douglass served before being shipped off to Baltimore. Out of all the white people he knew at the Great House, only Master Daniel seemed to care about him in any way, getting to the point where he “would not allow the older boys to impose upon [Douglass] and would divide his cakes with [him]” (Page 39).  This change on the treatment of slaved dependant of social pressure is interesting to say the least. It highlights the fact that people tend to care about what others think, linking back to previous chapters where Douglass mentions that all slaves were expected to say they had kind masters.

Douglass’ attitude about his move to Boston also provided immense shock value in the story. One would think that he would feel uncomfortable being shipped off without a choice, or maybe even apprehensive of what was expected of him in a big town. To my surprise, his reaction was the complete opposite: excitement about what was to come and positive expectations of his future in Baltimore. Douglass is so excited about his new life in the city that he doesn’t care when his mistress asks him to wash off until he is pristine. He clarifies in the book that this “pride of appearance” (Page 40) is not his own, but he still does it with glee, hoping that what he will find in the city is better that what he has lived his whole life, and comforting himself with the idea that it can’t be any worse.

Notice how everyone queuing to read is white, or is that just me? 

This comfort that Douglass uses on himself leads into the biggest surprise in these two chapters: the use of logos. In order to reach the conclusion that the worst he could get is the same Douglass would have to be able to analyze his situation and compare it to what he imagined in other plantations, in other words, it requires the use of logic. The idea of a seven-year-old slave comforting himself with logos is rather unbelievable to be honest, which is what makes me think that this might be an argument Douglass considered in retrospective when he was writing the memoir. Regardless of when he came to this idea, it is a clear example of logos, which makes it noteworthy in this memoir. Yet another use of logos can be found in chapter 6, when Douglass decides to learn to read because his master said that he shouldn’t. This determination he gets from the challenge his master gave him (Mr. Auld basically said that slavery and education were wring for each other, implying that slaves are stupid and not worthy of education) required logic to achieve. Just one phrase of opposition from his master was enough for Douglass to finally understand and attribute “to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man” (Page. 45).  These examples of logos show, for the first time in the memoir, how Douglass began understanding the world around him.

These two chapters have been the most interesting in the memoir for me so far. Douglass has stopped talking about what he saw around him in plantation and began to actually delve into his own story, sharing how he began to understand the world around him and the main differences he found when he moved from the plantations. These chapters make me more eager for what lies ahead in the book. Is Douglass going to continue using logos as he explains his conclusions about slavery and how he came to them? Will we hear more about his master’s opinion of slavery and education? I guess there’s nothing to it but to keep reading and find out.