Narrative of the life Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Written by himself.
The extract contained three chapters; Chapter I, III and VI. The first part is devoted to the early age of the author. Frederick was a son of a slave mother named Harriet Bailay and a white man. There is a chance that it was his master. He does not know his age because there was no custom to tell slaves their age. He guesses that he is about twenty seven or eight years old. He did not have a chance to get to know her mother because they were separated as he was a child. He saw her only a few times before she died. He also describes in the first chapter the first time he witnessed whipping. His aunt broke the rules and went out and was caught with a young man and punished for that. He mentioned two masters as well. From unknown reasons some paragraph are repeated in the extract but in the original book it is not like that (it is already prepared for reading in my e-book because the extract seemed to me really interesting). Chapter III is devoted to Colonel Lloyd´s ill - treatment to his slaves. At the beginning he talks about a garden with fruit that was a big lure to slaves and brought them a lot of pain and then he talks about a father and son were supposed to care about horses. They lived in constant fear because their master beat them without reasonable motives. Last part is about a slaves´ vision of their master and how telling the truth about him does not pay off. They actually though that they master was better than others and they even quarrelled about it. Chapter VI is about a new mistress who was unusual kind. He thought him some letters and lit the fire in his desire for learning. Then he narrates about the difference between being a slave on a plantation and a slave in the city where the conditions were a lot better on the first sight but of course exceptions are everywhere.
The text was not written with rage or anger. It seemed to be a pure description of the experienced events without many emotions but it clearly makes an impression. There were described some ideas which could form the slavery. These ideas or procedures could secure that the slavery worked. For example by letting slaves without a knowledge about their age or without any education. It was shown in the part where he talks about how he started to learn that it gave him hope which is something that endangered the masters. The argument of the master, that learning would have caused him disconnection and unhappiness, proves it. As well as the procedure with separation a mum from a baby looks like a principal of building docility. Or another way how to keep obedience was to send spies to find out what they were saying about their master. That is why they lived in constant fear and supressed the truth.