- What idea about slavery is developed through Fredrick's interaction with his mistress? How does he use rhetorical devices to convey that idea?
In Fredrick Douglass's, "My Bondage and My Freedom," Douglass talks about his Mistress's attempt to educate him as a young boy. She had started off with benevolent intentions; however, as time went on and malevolent opinions had been received from her husband, her teaching came to abrupt halt. It was believed her reasoning for this was slaves were not supposed to obtain knowledge or in other words, "education and slavery are incompatible with each other."
Obviously His mistress was wrong about that ignorant statement because look at us now, doing all the things slaveholders said we couldn't, but that is beside the point. Lets take a moment to observe this statement:
"Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies."
Apart from the evident parallelism, there is something bigger. Douglass wanted us to see that slavery is not natural, it is man made.
~Larenzle Coleman
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