From the moment his master forbade him to learn to read, Frederick Douglass, writer and former slave, realized that literacy was the “path from slavery to freedom ” (Douglass 77). He seemed to be talking about his escape from slavery, but it is possible that he was referring to the emancipation of all blacks in the South, because his purpose in writing had always been, above all, to gain support for the abolitionist movement and transform public opinion against slavery. Soon after escaping to the North, he began using his illegally learned skill to write speeches, articles, and his own account of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Douglass understood the importance of history and its influence on present actions, and he understood that those who can best shape the meaning of history and current events can best influence these actions. With this in mind, he used these writings to attempt to shape public opinion on slavery. However, he wrote during an unstable and ever-changing period in American history, so to better respond to changes and shape interpretations, he had to make changes to his arguments and rhetorical styles. Writing his Narrative before the Civil War, Douglass's purpose was simply to sway public opinion against slavery, whereas the articles he wrote during the war had more specific calls to action. His fiction makes heavy use of emotional appeals to manipulate the reader's sympathy and empathy and ethics to establish his credibility, while his writings on the Civil War focus more on logical arguments to support his specific claims and pathos to strengthen arguments. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Before the South seceded and the Civil War arrived, it was unknown whether slavery would ever end. Southern slaveholders wanted the institution of slavery to appear to be a benevolent system, to be good masters who provided for their slaves. In his narrative, Douglass reveals the ugly and violent truths about the slavery he witnessed or experienced, making heavy use of emotional appeals to influence the thoughts of his white audience. His purpose in writing this book was to convince readers to oppose slavery, using these appeals to make them sympathize or empathize with slaves as fellow humans. Over the course of the narrative, he piles on example after example of the horrific mistreatment of slaves, hoping that readers' emotional responses will lead them to firmly oppose slavery. He hopes that convincing more people to oppose it would help lead to a quicker abolition. He starts right away, with a mild example, starting the second sentence with the statement “I have no accurate knowledge of my age” (49). He goes on to say that he has never met a slave who knew his birthday. While this may seem insignificant, he tells readers that "White children could tell their ages" and that he "could not say why [he] should be deprived of the same privilege" (49), demonstrating that knowledge of one's age and birthday are things that people in the North would have taken for granted. The absence of something so small but full of value would have been a shock to readers. Shows that from a young age he felt dehumanized by slavery and racial comparisons, tries to get white readers to empathize with the dehumanization he feels by considering how they would feel if they didn't know their birthdays ortheir age. From there, the emotional appeals only intensify. In the next chapter, he describes the few possessions assigned the slaves According to Douglass, “Their annual clothing consisted of two shirts of coarse linen, a pair of linen trousers…a jacket, a pair of winter trousers, made of rough black fabric, a pair of socks and a pair of shoes; the whole thing couldn't cost more than seven dollars” (56) describing the low quality and small quantity of the clothes they could get in a year, he assures himself to mention the estimated price so that free white readers can compare the amount to how much they spend on clothes. Since they obviously spend a lot more, Douglass hopefully makes readers feel worse about themselves and, for this reason, sympathize more with the slaves. His inclusion of the detail that "Children from seven to ten years of age, of both sexes, almost naked, could be seen at all seasons of the year" (56) when their clothes became unusable, he also wants to shock the public, horrify them with this unfair treatment of children and once again attract public sympathy. The most extreme examples of his emotional appeals involve the physical abuse of slaves. Rather than trying to make the audience empathize with physical pain, he instead describes scenes in detail to make them feel the horror he felt watching this pain inflicted on others. In the first chapter he mentions what happened to his aunt Hester when she disobeyed their master's orders. The master “took her to the kitchen, stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her… completely naked” and began to whip her, “and soon the hot, red blood (amidst her heart-rending cries and horrible oaths on his part) dripped down on the floor” (54). He subsequently provides several examples of beatings and whippings he has suffered, but it would be unreasonable to ask his free audience to relate to these situations which have no equivalent in their lives. Rather, he conveys this memory of seeing his aunt being abused in graphic, vivid detail so that the audience can imagine the scene and watch it along with him, hoping that while they feel sympathy for the aunt, they also empathize with the "terrified and horror ". -struck” (54) feelings he experienced while watching as a child. Douglass includes all of these appeals to readers' sympathy to make them feel worse for slaves with every example. In this way, he uses pathos to try to achieve the purpose of his Narrative by turning people against slavery. However, Douglass wrote the Narrative at a time of intense prejudice in America, even in the free North. Black people, especially former slaves, were not expected to be able to write or speak as well as they could. Because of this, many people doubted whether his work was authentic and this made it difficult for him to achieve the purpose of his narrative. He was forced to use ethos frequently, to establish his credibility and thus increase the effectiveness of his work in convincing people to agree with him. To explain why he, as a former slave, is able to write well, he tells the story of how he began to learn to write and why he continued to learn. After he began serving a new family, his mistress, Mrs. Auld, “began to teach him A, B, C. After [he] had learned this, she helped him learn to write three- or four-letter words " (76). When his teacher found out, he forbade his wife to teach him anything else. At this moment, Douglass understood why whites did not want blacks to be literate. "Now I understood what had been a problem for me. most perplexing difficulty: namely, the white man's power ofenslave the black man... While I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was cheered by the priceless instruction which, by the simplest accident, I received had learned from my master" (77). He he makes sure to emphasize how important he considers the ability to read and write to ease the skepticism of some of his readers. He hopes that by seeing his strong drive to learn, they would understand why he is able to write so well and stop doubting the authenticity of his work. Readers are not worried about doubting his text, they would read it with a more open mind and be more susceptible to its emotional appeals of his character, to further the purpose of his work. The texts that Douglass writes during the Civil War are not focused on his experiences as a slave, but are based on demonstrative arguments. For this reason, he does not need to rely on ethics in these texts as he did in the Tale. These writings, unlike his Fiction, have clear purposes and specific calls to action. Now that the South had seceded and the North was fighting to get them back into the Union, there seemed to be a chance to end slavery. While in the narrative Douglass recounts his experiences to elicit sympathy, he no longer sees the need to simply convince people to oppose slavery. During the war, he instead makes specific arguments about current events and believes that following these arguments could lead to an end to the war, an end to slavery, and better treatment for free blacks. To defend these points, he makes much greater use of logical rhetoric, but still uses pathos to make these logical arguments more effective. However, pathos is used more forcefully and to appeal to different emotions than before. In his article “Fighting Rebels Single-Handed,” his main purpose is clear: African Americans should be allowed to fight for the Union Army. He supports his statement with logical arguments, but to make his speech more effective he continues to use pathos. Comparing the country to a burning building, he says that its owners “are determined that the flames should be put out only by Indo-Caucasian hands, and that the building should burn rather than be saved by any other means. Such is the pride, stupid prejudice, and folly that rule the hour." Then he asks, "Why does the government reject the negro? Isn't he a man? Can't he [be a soldier] like everyone else?... We believe that such soldiers, if allowed to take up arms in defense of the government, and made to feel that they will henceforth be recognized as persons having rights, would increase... . national power in every way." Douglass logically points out that allowing blacks to fight would increase the North's strength with a larger army, but he does so in a very emotional way. Rather than simply saying that allowing blacks to fight would turn the war in favor of the North, ending the war more quickly, emotionally charged his language, calling prejudice "stupid... folly" to ridicule those who oppose blacks' right to be soldiers comparing the country to a burning building captures the urgency of the situation. While his emotional appeals in his narrative were intended to gain the reader's sympathy to push him to oppose slavery, the emotional appeals in his articles work to strengthen his logical arguments, for. make his readers feel ashamed or angry and convince them to agree with him. While in the narrative he uses guilt as another way to elicit sympathy, here he uses it to influence,.