"When I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from the beginning (pg. 6)." Franklin sets the tone with this statement in the very beginning of his autobiography. It's quotes like these that set Franklin's autobiography apart from others as being more of a narrative. His personality and thoughts are portrayed in a way that everyone feels they can relate to him. Franklin's tone also lets people see the struggles and hardships he had to go through to be a better person and a better writer. An example of this can be found on page 17 when he looks back at his original work and realizes that he needs to make amends. There are a few other situations like this one that give Franklin's autobiography the theme of self-betterment or determination and perseverance. Throughout his story he also keeps the audience engaged by letting you see that he is more than just a smart man who accomplished many things in his life. He uses words that give him personality, yet intelligence. He also uses humor to let his audience know that he was a much more dynamic person than everyone thought; he has emotions just like everyone else.
Rules:
1. When discussing controversial topics, everyone needs to respect each others views and take the time to think about their rebuttal before saying it to prevent and disrespectful comments towards one another.
2. If someone has a different viewpoint than you, maybe you could ask them to explain it in order to have a better understanding for what they are saying. This way, everyone who disagrees will be better educated about the opposing viewpoint and will not make any false assumptions.
Taylor Nichols Fredrick Douglas Post
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting how a true slave was not supposed to have the base human nature of discontentment. It is a common human quality that if someone is given an inch, they will want a mile. The slaveholders knew this, so they did whatever they could to keep Fredrick from being a "man", and wanting more. It doesn't seem logical that the less someone has, the less they want, but Fredrick's experience seems to prove this true. This theme was also in the novel 1984, in which the Big Brother dictatorship kept the citizens in as much poverty as possible, so that they could never think to rebel.
I liked the level of superstition that Fredrick included into his memoirs. Everything from the magical root that kept Fredrick from being whipped, to the instant in which he inexplicably knew he had been betrayed, provided a nice perspective for the stories. I suppose that if technology was to be the opposite of superstition, it could logically follow that slaveholders used technology how the slaves used superstition.
It struck me how well the slaveholders designed the institution of slavery. They would hire spies to ask the slaves if they were discontent (and punish them for agreeing), to stifle their complaints to outsiders. This made it so they seemed completely happy, and made slavery seem almost humane. Another strategy, in which Fredrick's master would hide and wait for the instant he would cease to work, systematically prevented the slaves from ever slacking off. The masters would make an example of one slave for something menial, and effectively prevent all the others from doing similar things as a result. Even if the slaves knew that this was just a scare tactic, it didn't matter, because he would make an example out of them as well. All of these tactics were well-conceived, fool-proof ways of keeping the slaves down. The tactics seem almost to be forms of "social" technology used by whites.