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lnewton 's review for:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
by Frederick Douglass
This book is very engaging and surprisingly hard to put down considering its content.
Many events described throughout this book are brutal, from beatings to cold blooded murder, Douglass does not overlook the horrors that slavery is involved in. At many points Douglass draws our attention away from the individual incidents of horror that are described, and instead the focus comes down upon the disease behind it all: slavery and the moral blight it brings. Slavery is shown as corruptive, and we see nice people transformed by the power they possess over another human being. Douglass is very convincing in his argument that slavery isn't immoral because of the violence, it is intrinsically rotten and corruptive.
Connected to this is discussion of morality is the hypocrisy of pious Christian slaveowners. People who are Christians but also murderers, who pray 5 times a day but also whip slaves for small mistakes. These people betray any faith that they try to uphold by owning slaves; and their ownership of slaves causes them to be further distanced from God. These people even manipulate their faith to further convince themselves of their superiority over their slaves, and justify their evil actions through this religious cause, which is entirely antithetical to the teachings of Christ. As Douglass notes, "between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognise the widest possible difference."
Many events described throughout this book are brutal, from beatings to cold blooded murder, Douglass does not overlook the horrors that slavery is involved in. At many points Douglass draws our attention away from the individual incidents of horror that are described, and instead the focus comes down upon the disease behind it all: slavery and the moral blight it brings. Slavery is shown as corruptive, and we see nice people transformed by the power they possess over another human being. Douglass is very convincing in his argument that slavery isn't immoral because of the violence, it is intrinsically rotten and corruptive.
Connected to this is discussion of morality is the hypocrisy of pious Christian slaveowners. People who are Christians but also murderers, who pray 5 times a day but also whip slaves for small mistakes. These people betray any faith that they try to uphold by owning slaves; and their ownership of slaves causes them to be further distanced from God. These people even manipulate their faith to further convince themselves of their superiority over their slaves, and justify their evil actions through this religious cause, which is entirely antithetical to the teachings of Christ. As Douglass notes, "between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognise the widest possible difference."