Compare and Contrast Paper
Authors of pass and present times utilize things to help convey their work. Even today, their themes play an activate role in modern society. Frederick Douglass, in the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is a powerful example of the theme family. Although Douglass’ experiences with his family appear to have been deeper, some situations still exemplify family issues in today’s society.
However, Douglass first deals with family issues when he barely knows his parents. He had seemed to have had several prospects of who his father might be. He writes that his father “was a white man” from a whispered opinion, which nearly meant his master may have been his father (Douglass, 48). He also knew little of his mother. He states that he hardly had seen his mother “more than four or five times” throughout his life (Douglass, 48). Later he had not been informed that she had die, and left him to compare her death “to that of a stranger” (Douglass, 49). He had been separated from his mother when he was “but an infant” due to the lack of slavery before he could recognize she was his mother (Douglass, 48). He writes that it was “a common custom, in part of Maryland” from which he had run away from. Douglass later had witnesses the beating of his aunt Hester. He stated that he hid himself “in a closet” where he had probably need to stay until the “bloody transaction was over” (Douglass, 52). All of these are just a couple of examples of the disgust that humans went through during slavery.
In addition, other examples of family issues take part in family conditions. Several of the slave families, including Douglass, that received “allowance was given to their mothers or old women having the care of them” to support them in any way it could (Douglass, 54). The others on the other hand that were “unable to work in the field had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trousers, given to them” so they were unsupported. They did...