The Road Between Good And Evil

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate November 2001

download word file, 3 pages 3.0

Downloaded 23 times

The Road of Good And Evil During ones life he/she will meet many different people. As he/she travels down life's unpredictable road and enters the work force, he/she will meet both kind and cruel supervisors. Likewise in the Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Frederick experiences good and evil masters. Although the people Douglass meets are in complete control of his life, he encounters both cruel and kind, only when compared to other slave owners, masters.

Captain Anthony, most likely Frederick's father, was Douglass's first master. He served as clerk and superintendent for Colonel Edward Lloyd. The captain ""¦ was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding."(51) "He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave."(51) Douglass's first exposure to the sheer brutality of slavery was seeing Captain Anthony whip his Aunt Hester.

Likewise to Captain Anthony, Mr.

Severe, Colonel Lloyd's new overseer, was also a heinous man. Mr. Severe ""¦ t [o][o] k great pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity."(55) In conjunction to his cruelty, Severe ""¦ was [also] a profane swearer."(55) "From the rising till the going down of the sun, "¦ [Mr. Severe] [could] [be] [found] cursing, raving, cutting, and slashing among the slaves of the field, in the most frightful manner."(56) Unlike Captain Anthony and Mr. Severe, Frederick received much better treatment under the control of Hugh Auld. Frederick was given plenty of food to eat and proper clothing. Douglass received few whippings and even received a few instructions in reading. Although Hugh Auld treated Douglass fairly well, he took all the wages Douglass earned as a caulker in Baltimore.

Similar to most slave owners during Frederick's life, Captain Thomas Auld was also an evil man. Douglass came to live with Thomas...