Frederick Douglass Style Analysis

The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me.

-Juxtaposition of diction (antithesis) -Parallelism (contrast of slavery & freedom)

I have frequently been asked how I felt when I found myself in a free state.

complex

I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate.

complex

I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every colored man cause for distrust.

complex cumulative

I was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie in wait for their prey.

complex cumulative

I was yet liable to be taken back, and subjected to all the tortures of slavery.

complex cumulative

In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions.

complex periodic

It was a most painful situation; and, to understand it, one must needs experience it, or imagine himself in similar circumstances.

compound

This state of mind, however, was very soon subsided; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness.

compound

But the loneliness overcame me.

simple

I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself.

simple

It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced.

simple

The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery was this--"Trust no man!".

simple

This in itself was enough to damp the ardor of my enthusiasm.

simple

It was life and death with me.

simple sentence

There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren--children of a common father, and yet I dared not to unfold to any one of them my sad condition.

-compound -juxtaposition of diction "perfect stranger"

How I did so--what means I adopted, --what direction I travelled, and by what mode of conveyance, --I must leave unexplained, for the reasons before mentioned.

-syntax -use of dashes creates a pause

Let him be a fugitive slave in a strange land [...] the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.

-syntax: one sentence -compound-complex cumulative sentence

But I remained firm, and according to my solution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and interruption of any kind.

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