Shooting Kelso

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.