Frederick Douglass Q1 | 소크라테스 세미나

Frederick Douglass, an educated ex-slave who was able to use his intellect to inspire the thought of equal civil rights. His autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave" tells his stories and experience within the institution of slavery. Speaking for the abolishment of slavery, his target audience being educated, “privileged” white people, and with that he knew he had to change the way in which he tried to influence them. In his use of language and detailed, objective descriptions, Douglass was able to place more influence on his audience.

Knowing that his audience consisted of more of white and educated people, Douglass changed his vocabulary to better match the audience, and in a way shock them into listening to him. With the use of proper language, and more intellectual diction, such as "epoch" or “apostrophe”, Douglass was able to appeal more to the attention of his audience, as the traditional former slave wouldn’t know vocabulary of that level, let alone how to use it. Another way that Douglass was able to appeal to his audience being the use of objective, yet detailed descriptions of his experience. An example of this being when Mr. Covey hit him with a slat of hickory, and was described as "making a large wound, and the blood ran freely", and then told to get up. While still describing his abuse, Douglass was able to state things as they were, rather than describing things like the internal pain he may have felt. As his audience mostly grew immune to slaves crying and pitying themselves, it’s more surprising to them to hear that an ex-slave was simply telling events in the way that they happened, which overall was able to help better captivate his audience, while still getting his point across.

With the use of language and description, Douglass was able to expose the truth of slavery in a way that a white, educated audience would actually listen to. This effectively drew sympathy from this traditionally stubborn audience, and helped them understand his point. Overall, his style of writing was extremely effective when considering what his target audience was.