Frederick Douglass uses connotative word choice to describe intense emotions in order to connect with his audience and prove himself a worthy leader in the literary and abolitionist world. Douglass had to seek out an education, a concept that is rather impossible to imagine for many students reading his autobiography today. He focuses on the idea that when he was growing up, education was a privilege, not a right, and was simply unavailable for much of the population amongst enslaved people and those in lower classes. Douglass had no free access to education-- he learned in secret or through bribes. And yet, he became known as one of the most well-spoken men-- not just previously enslaved men-- of the era. He puts a strong emphasis on his fight for an education in order to prove himself to his audience and to establish his credibility as a writer. Douglass did not stumble into his education by accident, he yearned for it, sought it out, and sacrificed much in order to learn how to read and write. In the same chapter, Douglass describes the emotional impact that education had on him. He writes about reading the Columbian Orator as a young adult, and how it changed his outlook on his plight as an enslaved person. “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me.” (Douglass, p 54) Douglass’ use of powerful words like agony, stupidity, beast, reptile, and torment emphasizes the strength of the plight he was experiencing during this part of his life. He writes that in that moment of his life, he wished he had the mind of an animal over his own. This is a stark contrast to his previous thoughts of how dehumanizing slavery was, which further describes his feelings of pure agony. After he received the education he fought so hard for, he wished to be dehumanized over having the knowledge of his condition. Education and its connection to abolition is a very common concept across Douglass’ writing. Throughout the autobiography, Douglass emphasizes how knowledge and power interact and how slavery is possible by restricting what enslaved people are able to know and learn. As soon as enslaved people had access to education and knowledge, they could fight back against their oppressors. Douglass uses this idea in order to establish his credibility by proving that since he was both enslaved and found a way to be educated, he appeals to both white abolitionists and enslaved/escaped black people. Through that, he becomes more reliable as a writer and speaker to the abolitionist movement, and puts himself in a position where he is seen as a deserving and intelligent figurehead for civil rights. Frederick Douglass uses the value of education to prove his abilities to his reader-- specifically, he leans into his fight to receive an adequate education in order to establish his credibility as a writer and civil rights leader.

In order to explain the horrors of slavery to those who are less familiar than he, Douglass compares the plight of enslaved people to that of animals. This demonstrates his talents as a writer by using collectivism and comparison. In the context of the release of his autobiography, Douglass’ main readers would’ve been primarily well-educated white abolitionists from the northern urban areas of the US. Many of them had never directly seen a southern plantation, and chances are the majority had only seen the treatment of enslaved people in northern cities, where they are treated much better than they are on plantations. In order to compensate for that unfamiliarity of his audience, Douglass used a comparison between the treatment of enslaved people on plantations to the more familiar treatment of farm animals. After his enslaver died, Douglass recalled being valued amongst the rest of his enslavers belongings before being split up between his beneficiaries: “We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate inspection” (Douglass p 58). The effect of this description and This description of being valued along with farm animals and other belongings proved to Douglass’ readers that enslaved people were as valuable as any old animal to enslavers. By listing those being assessed, Douglass uses collectivism to show how enslaved people were all grouped together and stripped of all individuality. He also lists animals and people side-by-side, which also puts them together in an indistinguishable sense. “At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder,” Douglass finishes. The term brutalizing carries enormous connotation in this context-- slavery is not only brutal and inhumane for those enslaved against their will but also destroys all sense of morality in slaveholders. Slavery, Douglass is saying, brutalizes the life of enslaved people as well as the minds of slaveholders. Douglass, being a religious man and a philosopher, suggests in his writing that he believes all men to be born inherently good. Both plainly and covertly throughout, Douglass uses words like “brutalize” or “justify” to entertain the idea that owning slaves is neither natural, moral, or logical. The use of comparison and collectivism in Douglass’s writing demonstrates his incredible talents. 

Frederick Douglass shows his talent for writing by using the paradox of the relationship between religion and slave-owning. In the Appendix of his Autobiography, Douglass takes a break from his classic memoir-style writing and speaks almost directly to the reader. The appendix is a heart-to-heart with his audience, a moment where he is nothing but a person in the simplest sense. He speaks of the power of religion and the duality and hypocrisy of the religious slaveholder: “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land… The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me… We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls!” (Douglass p122). Douglass uses irony and paradox by describing the immorality of slavery and the religious justification of enslavers. By writing in a loop, he shows the illogicality of the religious man treating other humans as workhorses. He states that if the values of christianity are treating people equally and with respect and kindness, they cannot coexist with the brutalities of slavery. This use of paradox and irony gives his writing dimension that not only makes his view of abolition clearer and easier to understand, but appeals to the logical and religious views of his readers. Douglass’ use of irony is very beneficial to his argument against slavery, because it proves that slavery in itself is illogical in a world where most slaveholders justify their brutality with christianity. By connecting to Christianity, Douglass taps into a different part of his audience’s mind. While previously, he was focusing on the logical aspect of his reader’s mind-- the concrete, the understandable, the relatable. But by writing so clearly about religion, he taps into the religious, illogical, emotional side of his audience-- the philosopher. He uses religion to appeal to the sense of morality that his audience undeniably has, and by speaking directly to them he removes all possibility of dissociating from the text. He looks the reader in the heart and asks-- can they really, in good conscience, allow slavery to plague society any longer?