Loading Likes... The norton’s excerpt from “My Bondage and My Freedom,” offers a much closer and personal examination of Frederick Douglass’s experiences. It tells about the time he was sent to stay with an overseer, Mr. Coven’s, and his time resisting his abuse which was his first major act of open rebellion.

He writes, “Covey at length (2 hours had lapsed) gave up the contest. Letting me go he said, –puffing and blowing at a great rate–“now you, scoundrel, go to your work; I would not have whipped you half as so much as I have had you not resisted.” The fact was, he had not whipped me at all. He had not, in all the scuffle, drawn a single drop of blood from me. I had drawn blood from him: and even without this satisfaction, I should have been victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to prevent his injuring me.”

This excerpt from the text shows the increased closeness and vulnerability shown by Douglass than in comparison to his writing in Narrative of the Life, in which he recollects his memories in a more distant writing style. This same event of his life was briefly mentioned in the narrative, but with much less distinct detail. When reading this account of his experience however, the writing felt much more vivid and haunting due to the quantity of details and the closeness to Douglass who tells the reader of his thoughts in addition to just the events of his life. The much closer narrative style that reads more like a journal than a biography creates a more impertinent emotional impact that led me to check the dates each piece was published. I found that My Bondage and My freedom was published ten years after a Narrative Life which would account for a higher amount of detail and emotional vulnerability as Douglas was further separated from slavery and further immersed in the abolitionist movement. This assumption is further supported by the appendix that he added to the Narrative of the Life after its initial publication in which he writes more intense poetry about abolitionism. I would be curious to know more about the historical context between 1945 and 1955 when the two pieces were published. Was there a surge in abolitionism that made it possible for more passionate abolitionism pieces to be published or was Douglas more bold with time.