Revealing the Injustices of America and Its Continued...

Revealing the injustices of America: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and the continued perpetuation of American inequality One of the most notable features of the famous The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the extent to which Douglass shows how even good and reasonable whites in the South supported the institution of slavery. Slavery was dehumanizing to black men and women because it denied an entire class of human beings the right to literacy and the enjoyment of basic civil liberties. But it also coarsened the nature of white men and women. Even his first masters wife, Douglass says: this kind heart had but a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon (Doug lass 35-36). Douglass portrays a society entirely divided between haves and have-nots, between slave and free. If a person is born into slavery, his or her life is spoken for, and there is no hope for any betterment, unless he escapes to freedom. While this situation seems horrific to modern-day eyes, it is worth asking if our present circumstances are really so different, given the class disparities that exist within America today. How will the divide between the rich and the poor in