He writes that he cannot escape their mournful tones and seeks to correct the erroneous assumption of whites that slaves sang because they were happy.

Douglass recalls listening to them as a child and not quite understanding their depth of sorrow and meaning, but tells his readers that now he comprehends them and believes that they are able to invoke sympathy and arouse anger in their listeners. Slave songs gave vent to the truest expressions of the experience of slavery in antebellum America. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds.' Douglass, p. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them.To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. 'The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness.

It is successful as a compelling personal tale of an incredible human being as well as a historical document. The Narrative captures the universality of slavery, with its vicious slaveholders and its innocent and aggrieved slaves. Douglass's aunt was not the only slave who was beaten, and Douglass was not the only child who grew up without a mother. On the other hand, this passage and the autobiography as a whole are records of the brutality of slavery. His world-view grew at that moment as he became aware of what outrages could be perpetrated against an innocent slave.

He saw the injustice and the cruelty and was forever scarred. As an adult he writes that he realizes that this was one of the first times he really became aware that he was enslaved and what the horrors of that position entailed. He sees his own aunt being beaten mercilessly and wonders if he will be next. On the one hand, this is a very personal recollection of a young boy's experience. This passage exhibits both of these themes. 16ĭouglass's autobiography is both a personal coming-of-age tale as well as an indictment of the horrors of slavery.

I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.' Douglass, p. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. 'I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition.

Douglass slave narrative