Frederick Douglass' Perspective on Slavery in His Autobiography

As one of the most famous and important examples of the slave narrative, which is the story of a slave’s life from his or her narration, either verbal or written, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass states the harmful effects of slavery on society and individuals, including slave owners, and suggests knowledge as a way of destroying slavery. Douglass depicts his own life not as an individual experience but as a depiction of the condition all slaves go through.

This book, the third volume of his autobiography, only adds to what he previously wrote. As he has stated in all of his works, slavery is a problem for slave owners as well as slaves. He suggests that a slave is forced to live under terrible conditions and become ignorant to be kept under control because knowledge would provide a sense of freedom for them, causing them not to listen to their owners, in his first volume of autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, through an experience of his with one of his masters, Mr. Auld and his wife (28–29). Apart from the commonly known bad effects on slaves, Douglass states that slavery causes damage to slave owners’ moral health. According to Douglas' own birth story, having a slave turns a master cruel and tempts him to adultery and rape. Adultery and rape would damage the master’s and his wife’s relationship and family life and cause them to treat the slaves worse. A slave owner would turn into a merciless human being, which would damage his soul. While being merciless, he would need to use an excuse to justify his actions and damage his soul.

As Douglass states, his master, Captain Auld, and his wife followed what the church, which benefited from slavery, told them and used their doctrines as a base for their behavior (46–48). According to Douglass, they thus distanced themselves from true Christianity, which emphasizes love and repentance above all else. In summary, in the final volume of his autobiography, Frederick Douglass not only states the negative effects of slavery on slaves, but also on slave owners, and provides one of the best examples of a slave narrative in American literature.