THE RECOVERY OF SELF-IDENTIFICATION IN FREDERICK DOUGLASS'S NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Abstract

"Douglass deliberates the only two options he believes are available: “to go home and be whipped to death, or stay in the woods and be starved to death” (Phillips, Wendell. P.3)The Narrative explains the strategies and procedures by which whites gain and keep power over blacks from their birth onward. Slave owners keep slaves ignorant of basic facts about themselves, such as their birth date or their paternity. This enforced ignorance robs children of their natural sense of individual identity. As slave children grow older, slave owners prevent them from learning how to read and write, as literacy would give them a sense of self‑sufficiency and capability. Slaveholders understand that literacy would lead slaves to question the right of whites to keep slaves. Finally, by keeping slaves illiterate, Southern slaveholders maintain control over what the rest of America knows about slavery. If slaves cannot write, their side of the slavery story cannot be told.This study aims to illustrateFrederick Douglass's attempt to regain his identity as a human who has his rights to live freely in this life in the American society. American society, throughout the narrative of this novel, shows how white slaveholders create slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant to be able to control them mentally and psychologically.So, by studying this particular narrative about the southern slave system, the research is going to have good understanding  of  not  only  the  community  of  southern  slaves  but  also  American  society  as  a whole.