Frederick Douglass’ Most Effective Rhetoric Strategy
Frederick Douglass, one of the great speakers born in the American slave history used a range of devices to make his speeches attractive and capture the attention of his audience. In his narratives, the styles used never aligned to each other thus he gained the uniqueness to stand that made his work remain relevant for long. Among the devices that the Douglass is mainly acknowledged for, include the pun, rhetoric devices, and oxymoron, direct speech, and paralinguistic quotations. Rhetoric involves the use of words or a phrase to convey a message without presenting the message directly to the audience. In this respect, deductive reasoning is essential when grabbing the meanings of the rhetoric. Further emphasis on the meanings of the rhetoric devices in Douglass’ works is evident in the use of metaphors and chiasm. The paper analyses the application of the rhetoric strategy through paradox and the rule of three in the Douglass’ narratives with the view of supporting the evidence on the use of the device in his works.
Douglass mainly applied rhetoric to imply meaning that he intended people to grab but lacked a better direct ways of presenting it. In his speech, “what to the slave is the fourth of July?” he used a number of rhetoric to articulate the point of the suffering that the slaves went through, making them lose meaning in the society. He compared the people directly to the elements that made their being, articulating that the slaves suffered in the hands of the other Americans. In most of the statements, Douglass used different styles of rhetoric although three of the styles emerged most. However, paradox and the rule of three prevail throughout the application of the rhetoric devices in his speech. He stated that, “on this day, America is 76 years old, yet as much as the slaves know of their ages; the American slave knows little of it (Frederick 2). In this rhetoric phrase, Douglass implied that the slaves had lost meaning in the sense of life and that they lived as though even the horses were better than they were. The statement rhetorically shows the extent of the mistreatment that the slaves went through and the depth of their intimidation.
Douglass, in his speech indicates that the slaves faced ill treatment even when they had tough times through the application of satirical statements. He says that, he was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. The slaves, through this statement, faced segregation and Douglass articulates that even in times when they expected the slightest favour from their masters, the mistreatment run even deeper than before the case. The satirical rhetoric clearly shows the point that Douglass made without the direct address of the same. In the same rhetoric statement, Douglass underlines the effect that parallelism had in his speeches as one of the support devices of his rhetoric analysis.
Douglass best articulated his rhetoric application through the execution of the rule of three in most of his speeches. Douglass clearly showed that the slaves felt the mistreatment and that they had the choices to run away although they never did that. The rule of three also applies in the case when he bemoans the fact that he was not allowed at the time when loved ones needed him most, especially when they were such as during their burial.
Douglass talks of the severe experiences of the slaves in the manner of the lives that they lived. Most of the slaves lived in pathetic conditions courtesy of treatment from the masters who did not give them the essentials to live. Paradox mainly asserted the essence of the poor lives of the slaves. His statement indicating that he died as he lived means that although most of the people looked at the physical being of the slaves and concluded that they lived, they actually had miserable lives when compared to the dead. The paradoxical rhetoric articulates the meaning through parallelism to the lives of the slaves. The statement contrasting the living and the dead extends beyond the comparison bounds hence it stands as one of the extreme comparisons rating as a paradoxical statement in the rhetoric phrase.
He indicated the contrast in the treatment of women through rhetoric showing the whipping and the torture that the women went through at the hands of the male masters. In his speech, he indicated that, “ see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave buyers (Frederick 16). Through this paradox, Douglass indicated the women underwent harsh treatment in all times and expectation, yet the masters expected them to react to the treatment in the intended way. Painful treatment used to develop romantic feelings truly hurt the slave women. The paradox in the statement shows that the treatment was deeply felt by all the slaves, especially the women.
Frederick revealed that the slaves possessed mixed feelings in their mindsets of the masters, with the songs that they composed clearly showing the mix of the feelings. He states that their songs revealing the highest joy and the deepest sadness. This means that, as much as the people appeared to their masters a happy group, they possessed ill feelings deep inside their hearts and had a discord in their emotional setting.
Douglass stands out as one of the author and speakers with the best use of the rhetoric devices in most of his works. In his speeches, he used the rhetoric to bring out the feelings that he had about the slave life, particularly the treatment that the slaves received from the masters. He used paradox and the rule of three mainly to show the absolute contrast between reality and what the people believed existed. In essence, the treatment of the slaves comes out stronger and more elusive when the rhetoric comes into play than when they do not appear in the phrases.
Works Cited
Frederick, Douglass “To what the slave is the fourth of July.” pp1-28. Print.
