Final Post - Douglass

The book “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass” was one of the far most interesting books I have ever read in my life. It contained first hand incidents, not in much detail but extremely easy to picture. I actually expected most of the things I heard but some of them were doing way too much. One of the things that really made me think that this book was a fake was when Douglass discussed how there were people at the plantations that were not really of much authority and yet they did the most whipping. I figured that it was not true and I did not think that white people would be that horrible. The reason I felt that way was just because Douglass said that some of the white people on the plantations focused on the slaves every little move so that they could find reasons to whip them and when they were whipping a slave, they did it with no emotion. That naturally disgusted me, it was disturbing to think that people in the world did such things and I began to think that the book was, like I said, a fake.

I think that this was a narrative that was very inspirational and it had me questioning various things which I would like to address. First off, I was confused at how a slave could get away with doing half of the things that Fredrick Douglass did. For instance, in a previous book post, I discussed how Douglass had choked his master and from then on, had barely ever gotten whipped. That was probably the most surprising thing that I read. I was astonished at how he could have gotten away with it because considering the types of people he described in his narrative, I would have expected him to get whipped to death right on the spot. On top of that, I would have thought that because of his actions, Douglass would have been killed instead of left alone. These events lead to the next thing that got me thinking. Mr. Fredrick said that his years in slavery following that specific incident weren’t as bad as it could be. He encountered very sweet women that fed him well and work wasn’t as bad.

Although this book was the most interesting and inspirational thing I have ever read, I have to admit that I was bored out of my mind in the beginning. Slavery is something that catches my attention and learning about it is something that I have always enjoyed. However, I started to change my mind because the book felt like it was dragging and didn’t seem to really be going anywhere. It started off explaining the people he was with and all so I thought it was okay because it was just setting everything up. However, it kept on going and going for a few chapters. I can safely say that I read about 3 chapters just talking about who he encountered most of the time, and to be honest, I could care less. I was more interested in knowing what he went through, when he went through, and how he went through it. As I had to read these parts of the book, I could literally feel my eye lids getting heavier and heavier and they were about ready to drop and close shut. I read and read and realized that it was not just what he was talking about that made this book so boring, it was the words he would use. Half of the words that were used I did not understand which naturally made me bored.

Although this book bored me to death, I finally found it to be worthy of my time towards the middle and end. From the interesting to questionable to boring parts, I decided that putting it together, it makes just another book. Since I love reading, I was able to force myself to not give up but to rather keep on going and read. As I read, I found this book to have a strong moral. Although I find this moral in every single book I read, this time it was the most obvious. I felt like the moral of this book was to say that even though you feel like there is no way out, that you are stuck with the one lifestyle, and that you can’t change it, you are wrong. You can always get out of every situation if you are willing to do that for yourself. If you are willing to work on something and step up like Douglass did, you can get out of everything. Not necessarily choking someone but anything else.  

Overall, this book was boring, interesting, and through it all, I was engaged in it. Okay, AND I might sound like I am contradicting myself big time but the thing with this book is that most of the book was boring whilst other part were interesting. So yeah...