Douglass endures and overcomes several types of slavery in his lifetime. The first type, and also the most known, is physical slavery. We see in the Narrative that Douglass is exposed to this physical pain and suffering as soon as he is born. Douglass continues enduring it all through is young adult life. He escapes this physical slavery at the age of 20. As soon as Douglass arrived in New York, he overcame the bodily aspect of slavery.

The second type of slavery is mental. An example of this type would be the constant, continuous verbal abuse the slaves received from their masters. Douglass is exposed to this type when he is mature enough to understand what is being said to him. Douglass must endure this for as long as he has to endure physical slavery. One of the cruel thing of their time was that the slaves would be verbally abused no matter how well they were doing physically. Overcoming this type of slavery is almost impossible. After Douglass escaped from physical slavery, the mental wounds and scars still echoed in his mind.

These two types of slavery are the most common and the most difficult to understand. By the Narrative he wrote, we see and understand how Frederick Douglass dealt with and endured the physical and mental captivity. Through history and other biographies, we see how he overcame physical slavery and controlled the never ending mental slavery that still affects millions today.

“No words, no tears, no prayers from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped the longest.”

This line is found on page 11 as he describes one of his master's sick, cruel punishments. When first reading over this line, it sounds just like another ploy at trying to inform the unaware citizens of the time the truth about life on a plantation. If the line is read multiple times, it sounds almost poetic. The words used and how they are arranged gives the line a certain lyrical rhythm. Analyzing this use of poetry closer can give a definite insight to what Douglass was trying to get across to his reader's.

The first three nouns we read all have “no” in front of them, “No words, no tears, no prayers...” This repetition was used by Douglass stresses the fact that the master showed no mercy to anyone for any reason. There was no way to escape the fate of the woman expressed in the line. Just a few words after, we see the word “victim” being used to describe what the woman was to the master. This is an odd word to use in any sense because a human never really has a “victim”. Douglass' use of this word shows how brutal the master's were and how little respect was shown to the slaves.

Much of what he writes is in refutation, directly or by example, of the views and arguments of the advocates of slavery. For example, advocates of slavery would often point out that slaves themselves often praised the kindness of their masters. Douglass refutes this first by example: He segues from the wealth of Colonel Lloyd, to the number of Col. Lloyd's slaves, to the fact that because of this great number, Col. Lloyd did not recognize one of his won slaves when he met him on the road, and the slave, not knowing he was talking to his master, answered Col. Lloyd's questions honestly, telling him that he was mistreated, and in consequence was separated from his family and sold into Georgia(p. 1946-47).

Douglass then goes from the specific incident to the general situation, refuting the slavery-advocates' argument by explanation--"The frequency of [the spies on behalf of the masters] has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head." Douglass makes the explanation stronger and more convincing by putting the example that proves it before it, and gets past at least some of his readers' intellectual "defenses" by segueing into the subject of why slaves praise their masters without showing his readers where he's going until he's there.

Similarly, he explains why slaves sang. Advocates of slavery often would point to the fact that slaves frequently sang, to argue that they were happy, therefore they were not being mistreated, and their enslavement was no hardship to them. The slavery-advocates argued, furthermore, that this singing showed that blacks were essentially happy and content by nature, with the implication that nothing that whites did to them could hurt them, and that they did not have the same human nature that whites did.

Douglass refutes this in the same manner with which he refuted the argument concerning the fact of slaves saying the were well-treated: He starts by segueing into the concrete example--from the farm that the slaves called the Great House Farm, to what the slaves did and felt who were sent to the Great House Farm, to their singing, to the reasons why they sang, to the general explanation--arguing against the slavery-advocates who claimed that their singing was a sign of happiness.

He writes: "The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears." Then he goes to his own experience, but since he is trying to communicate, not only his experience, but his very humanity, to whites, his next two sentences are ones that express experience that whites could also relate to, that might have happened to them: "I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness."

His next sentence refers to his experience as a slave, but the sentence after that raises an image of a man who might well be white, "a man cast away on a desolate island," singing to relieve his misery, as the slave does. Douglass uses a hypothetical man that it would be easier for white readers of his time to relate to. He does this to make it easier for them to empathize with the slaves and comprehend what they might be feeling, in order to help his readers see the slaves' humanity, as he demolishes the argument that slaves sing out of happiness. (p. 1945)

The Autobiography frequently echoes, and subverts, the traditional features of traditional nineteenth-century autobiography and fiction. It starts with the few statistics Douglass has about his birth--i.e., where he was born, but not when. Autobiographies of the time often started with where the author was born, and his or her birthday. Douglass is subverting that convention, by describing his lack of knowledge of when he was born, and at the same time, describing, beginning with the second sentence, one of the ways in which slavery denies slaves the things that whites take for granted--i.e., knowledge of when they were born and who their parents are.

The first sentence does not refer to Douglass's former enslavement in any way, but could be from a white person's autobiography, could be the way a conventional autobiography opened ("this is where I was born"). The second sentence might normally give the author's birthday ("this is when I was born"); the second sentence of the Autobiography subverts the familiar expectations which the first sentence raised.

The second paragraph gives a few details about his mother and her parents. The fourth paragraph describes his father. Both these things might well be the traditional development of the autobiography and novel, after giving the place and date of birth; but Douglass, instead of giving his father's name, points out that he doesn't know who his father was. Chapter II begins with information about his master's family; this might be the usual pattern for beginning a chapter, or at least a common technique in the nineteenth century, to begin a chapter with information (not really description, but straight-forward and dry information).

When Douglass describes Mr. Gore, the overseer, he uses the technique again of hiding where he is going with his argument, or his rhetoric and examples, until he is there. The first paragraph of Chapter III (pp. 1947-48), introducing Mr. Austin Gore, is neutral and informational in tone--e.g.: "Mr. Hopkins was succeeded by Mr. Austin Gore, a man possessing, in an eminent degree, all those traits of character indispensable to what is called a first-rate overseer." In the next paragraph, the first sentence seems positive and full of praise: "Mr. Gore was proud, ambitious, and persevering." From what has come so far, readers might just as well assume that Mr. Gore was kind and good, as overseers go, as that he was cruel (which turns out to be the case).

The next sentence is negative: "He was artful, cruel, and obdurate." (The word "artful," at this time, in this context, was negative, as in Charles Dickens' Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist; the word "artful" could apply to a criminal, or to the devil.) Douglass uses this technique, again, to get past his readers' "defenses," by the use of surprise. He then goes on to illustrate these qualities of Mr. Gore by both rhetoric and horrifying, graphic examples.

Douglass uses some other techniques to communicate across the barriers of race in the nineteenth century, and free vs. slave. He quotes an anti-slavery poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (p. 1960) for the purpose of, among other things, proving his intelligence and sophistication. He quotes a proverb, "being hanged in England is preferable to dying a natural death in Ireland," to express his feelings and former situation in words--i.e. this proverb--that might already strike a familiar chord in his white readers; and the use of this proverb also enables white readers to draw a parallel between a situation they might be able to relate to and Douglass's experience.