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DNIL FLORIN
AMERICAN LITERATURE
SEMINAR PROFESSOR: DIANA BENEA

NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Towards Dystopia: The presence of slavery becomes the haunting other on the surface of The
American Dream

This essay will approach the theme of slavery in the context of nineteenth century America,
one of the dominant motifs in the years of said countrys establishment as a literary power. To
this end, Frederick Douglass literary biography will be presented and discussed, the in-depth
picture of slavery withdrawn from it and contrasted to the supposed moral values which stood at
the foundation of The New World. The essay will be comprised of three parts, the first of which
will serve as historical background and explanation of the American Dream creed, and will
attempt to clarify its meaning and ideology, in order to further verify its validity on the account
of slavery, the topic of the second part, which will be thoroughly analyzed as seen through the
eyes of the author. Finally, the two concepts will be compared and a conclusion drawn in the last
part.
The American Dream is an ethos, or a set of ideals enforcing human rights and appropriate
treatment and conditions for the people of America: [...] its promise that citizens of the new
nation were already endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life and
liberty, and that these same people were entitled to engage in many varied pursuits of happiness
(Hanson, White 1-2). Such perks were therefore considered to be divinely attributed to each and
every person within the borders of the country, and were not regarded as prerogatives given only
to the privileged. While equality and liberty are self-evident, the right to pursue various
endeavors meant that America also provided opportunities and promised shelter and possibilities
for its refugees, who would run away from the old and broken world, embracing the new
multicultural, plentiful and tolerant territory. The American values extended abroad and spread,
attracting people in search of an escape from poverty and oppression, while its just,

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perfectionistic nature made America the ideologically perfect society envisioned in the Middle
Ages, namely Utopia.
Maurice Lee notes that Douglass begins his work not by analyzing slavery, but by presenting its
most horrible aspects and features (Lee, 92), refraining from straightforwardly accusing slavery,
and highlighting its wrongness by referring to abuses of the system: I have no accurate
knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it[]My mother and I
were separated when I was but an infant (Douglass, 1-2). In doing this, Douglass appeals to the
sympathy and morality of his readers, who are to judge the nature of slavery from the perspective
of the values put forward by their united. Since the practice of owning and abusing slaves was
accepted and overlooked by the law, the only set of standards by which slavery could be judged
as inappropriate was the American Dream ethos, the values of which were betrayed by the slaveowning community. In not being allowed to know their own age, and being denied interaction
and bonding with their own families, slaves were stripped of their own identity, a basic human
right. Douglass continues to present disturbing aspects of slave culture: slaveholders have
ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the
condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and
make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable. (Douglass, 3).
Slave women were therefore purposely impregnated and their children taken advantage of, and
turned into profit. This practice is strikingly similar to the breeding of livestock, bringing slaves
down to a humiliating level of demeanor, that of being considered less than human and treated
like animals, the slaving system including special trainers which were supposed to tame them out
of disobedience. They were violently beaten, overworked and starved, their hard labor wasnt
properly rewarded, and they were denied an education in order to keep them in line. Slave
children were emotionlessly sold into slavery by their own fathers, and were further traded to
other owners without too much consideration, like currency. The dreadful world of slavery
adopted thus traits of a dystopian society, wherein the common folk were objectified and kept in
line through violent and heartless means, stripped of identity, emotion, freedom and happiness.
While the American Dream ideology has its roots roughly around the eighteenth century, slavery
had been a trending practice long before that. Incidentally, by the time the American Dream had
become the creed at the basis of the New World, slaves were not considered worthy of enjoying
it, and was applied solely on an exclusive level. The slave Dystopia was superposed with the

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American Utopia, and functioned as an underlying layer thereof. Slaves lived among free people,
and were yet secluded and reduced to a miserable lifestyle, to which free people were oblivious,
their strife and efforts were ignored and kept silent by the leaders of the society. Heartless
practices were supported by the law and even justified by religion. While America was thriving as a
land of diversity and opportunity, slavery was the dark

counterpart, supported by legislation and even

religion and contradicting the highly humane attitude developing in the New World.

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WORKS CITED

1. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. N.p.:
n.p., n.d. Ibiblio. Elegant Ebooks. Web. 5 Jan. 2016.
<https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Douglass/Narrative/Douglass_Narrative.pdf>.

2. Hanson, Sandra L., and John Kenneth White. The American Dream in the 21st Century.
Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2011. Print.
3. Lee, Maurice S. The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 2009. Print.