Without
doubt, Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass, an American Slave is more a narration than an exposition. The author attempts to show the reader the life that he lived, rather than tell him of his experiences as a slave. This
is the nature of a memoir— especially one that tries to prove a point, rather
than simply express thoughts. Douglass
attempts to convince the reader of the cruelty of slavery, he (likely
involuntarily) resorts to rhetoric in order to do so.
With
a story that makes the readers feel bad, sad or any other adjective that
resonates or expands with these two, there is pathos aplenty. On the other
hand, it is hard to employ ethos in a memoir because there is no one that you
are trying to win an argument against.
That being said, Douglass does use ethos to portray characters within
the novel. Colonel Lloyd, a man that
“owned so many,” casually asks a slave “whom do you belong to?” and then
proceeds to sell the slave upon disliking his answers to his
interrogation. The inclusion of this
scene, especially considering that Colonel Lloyd didn’t have a personal
relationship with Douglass, attacks his reputation. Moreover, it attacks Lloyd’s reputation based
on other slaves’ comments about his character.
The ethos that plays a part in describing and denouncing masters and
overseers becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when Douglass is showing us something that didn’t happen
to him.
This
ties in perfectly with his use of logos.
While Douglass’ own logic may seem perfectly sound, it is interesting to
see how he describes the logic behind others’ decisions. In a particularly ironic chapter, Douglass
narrates how “Mr. Bondly took offence, and with his musket came down to the
shore, and blew its deadly contents into the poor old man.” Mr. Bondly’s logic
was that if a slave had trespassed his property lines, it was perfectly
acceptable for him to simply kill him, and make it clear that trespassing was
abominable, to say the least. Similarly,
slaves felt that “the greatness of their masters was transferrable to
themselves,” thus excusing their fights with slaves from a different owner. The logic behind both of these violent acts is
similar: if I think that what you are doing or saying is wrong, I will
physically hurt you. Obviously, no one
in Douglass’ book ever heard of Kelso’s choices; moreover, Douglass himself is
acknowledging the reasoning behind these actions and knowingly taking a
different path. The logos that dictates
that writing will do more good than fighting or shooting leaves the reader with
a feeling of esteem for Douglass’ intentions.
