Question

What tools do human beings use to transcend difficulties

Answer 1

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a well re-known African American of his time recounts his life as a slave. He tells of the horrors of growing up in a plantation where he was a subject to extreme racism but manages to run away to freedom and later becomes a renowned writer and activist. He tells of how he was separated from his mother to a plantation farm. He witnesses his aunt being bitten by his owner and recounts how he flees Baltimore to one of the free states in the north.

Douglass denotes that, " Mr Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!"  which portrays the mental and emotional state of a slave who had been dehumanized and the tools he used to transcend the difficulties he went through as a human being.

Douglass astute analyses the psychology of slavery with eloquent assertions of self, and a striking command of rhetoric lift. This work above others in its genre. Particularly memorable scenes include Frederick’s early life teaching himself to read, a fight with the slave-breaker Covey, and his apostrophe to freedom as he watches sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay, together with his interpretation of slave songs as songs of sorrow.