Heartless People

Without directly stating a creative thinker in these incidents, Douglass clearly conveys his disapproval through subtle sarcasm.

In another passage portraying the hard worker Caroline, Douglass once again uses this descriptive yet critical language. Initi whollyy explaining how she was a "large, fit wo human beings" who was bought for a "breeder" (1910), he states that "he leased a married man of Mr. Samuel Harrison, to live with him one year, and him, he used to fasten up with her every night!" victimization the exclamation point, Douglass interrupts the neutral illustration and subtly denounces slaveowners for this sexual nuisance and callous treatment of women slaves as animals "breeded" and "fastened up." In all of these examples, Douglas' subtle, often sarcastic criticism implicitly asks the reader, "Can you take this?"

Beyond manipulating words in particular passages, Douglass infuses the narrative with a volatile wraith to stir his criticism. The self-controlled tone actually engages the reader in an active, critical role throughout the narrative. For example, Douglass assumes this detached tone in describing the master's rules of slavery - "to be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished" (1887), "killing a slave, or either colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community"

Ultimately, these outbursts demonstrate that perhaps under Douglass' self-controlled tone lies a strong emotional, critical voice, generating energy within every passage. once the readers experience the force of these outbursts, they realize that his self-controlled, detached voice does not lack outrage.

In another passage, Douglass' transitions produce a comparable jarring effect. Concluding a page-long description of his grandmother's death (to be discussed in proceeding pages), pleading "will not be a righteous God visit for these things?" (1902). Douglass immediately resumes his chronological narration: "in about two years subsequently the death of Mrs. Lucretia . . ." (1903).

While not allowing Douglass, nor the readers, time to wallow in emotional responses, these abrupt transitions elicit the shock and pain of slave life.

Just as he did song and home, Douglass next targets holidays. outset with "the days between Christmas and New Year's day are allowed as holidays; and, accordingly, we were not required to perform any labor, more that to scarper and take care of the stock" (1916), Douglass suggests that perhaps on holidays slaves, and the readers, superpower find relief from the oppressive slave system. Yet he immediately twists expectations and describes holidays as "part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and atrociousness of slavery" (1917). Making the slaves drunk, the master psychologically manipulates them into believing that, in comparison to "slavery of run" on holidays, "slavery of man" equaled freedom. Once again, holidays enter the sequence of paradoxes that renders the reader helpless among Douglass' constant reversal of expectations.

Although in some instances, a direct, militant style of social criticism may prove powerful in eliciting criticism, as with Martin Luther King, Jr., this fact must not obscure the pronouncement of more subtle, controlled styles, such as Frederick Douglass' in Narrative of the carriage of an American Slave. By enga
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