The Use of Chiasmus to Highlight the Irony of Slavery in Narrative of t

The Use of Chiasmus to Highlight the Irony of Slavery in Narrative of the emotional state of Frederick Douglass According to Barton and Hudsons Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms, a chiasmus is a rhetorical scheme that is particularly effective in creating irony through the contrary of accepted truths or familiar ideas (189). Frederick Douglass uses the chiasmus throughout his Narrative of the emotional state of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave to highlight the irony of hard workerrys existence in a untaught that was built upon the ideals of freedom. Throughout his autobiography, we find several specific instances of chiasmus that cause the lector to pause and focus on the point that Douglass is trying to make. Each chiasmus is position in an important point of the text (and, therefore, an important point of Douglass life) and calls wariness to that passages significance.Let us begin with what is, perhaps, the most famous Douglass quotation You bugger off seen how a m an was made a slave you shall see how a slave was made a man (64). This sentence serves as the play point, the climax, of both Douglass narrative and his life. Up until that point, throughout his entire life, the world had been occupy making him a slave. From the moment he was born to a slave mother (even though his father was white), the forces of slavery had been suffocating his clementity. When he was forcibly separated from his mother, he mixed-up the human closeness of family. When he unable to help witnessed his aunt being brutally beaten and was subjected to repeated beatings himself, he lost the human sense of pride. And, when he was denied education and literacy, he lost the human ability to obtain know directge. In all of these ways, society turned Frederick Douglass, a man, int... ...ee nation. Douglass marks his transformation from slave to man with a chiasmus just beforehand his fight with Mr. Covey. He used two more to highlight events that led up to that climac tic afternoon one contrasting the will of the outperform and that of the slave, and other contrasting the freedom of the ships with Fredericks own bondage in slavery. Finally, Douglass uses a chiasmus to highlight the disparity between the free, near-utopian North, and the slaveholding, harsh South. His masterful use of the rhetorical tool of chiasmus allowed Frederick Douglass to expertly exhibit the irony of slavery to an entire nation. plant CitedBarton, Edwin J. and Glenda A. Hudson. A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 2004.Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. New York Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003.