Description and Restraint in Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass

In class today we were faced with the question of why Douglass writes so thoroughly on the topic of sexual assault and so little on intramural joy and happiness. I thought I'd contemplate and give what I believe to be Douglass' answer on here.

The question of why Douglass wrote extensively about Aunt Hester's assault by Lloyd's Ned while giving only brief attention to the singers in the woods has two essential answers that reveal his purpose in writing Narrative.

The first answer concerns the ends Douglass is pursuing: to grow the abolitionist movement and end slavery. Douglass intended his narrative to reach those who might have viewed slavery as a distant and secondary issue. He writes vividly of the most putrid and immoral horrors that regularly occurred on plantations to pierce their apathy. He tugs at heartstrings, making it impossible for them to sit idly by while blacks are denied freedom. In contrast, he is restrained when writing of the brief intramural joy an enslaved person experienced when away from their white overseers. This restraint allows him to illustrate their humanity without allowing skeptical readers room to assume that enslaved people were content enough with their condition for abolition to seem unnecessary.

The second answer in his means of pursuing his ends, and lies in the distinction between invoking and describing emotion. Douglass' inclusion of Aunt Hester's story is meant to do the former, and the singers in the woods to do the latter. To better explain the difference between these two, we need to understand what it is Douglass attempts to convey through their additions in his narrative. 

The vivid and horrendous tale of Aunt Hester is one of evil, a perpetual state on the southern plantation. The introduction of the singers is to report on joy, an emotion. Evil action is tangible, and evil is a condition, not an emotion. Writing about an evil action should invoke emotion tied to the hatred of evil, namely rage and passion. However, Douglass does not write about this emotion; the onus is on the reader to experience it.

Describing an emotion like joy is a less successful tactic, so Douglass does not attempt to do it. To describe an emotion strips away the feeling it creates and makes it into a crude approximation of itself. Words, as symbols, can not fully encapsulate the complexity, immediacy, and power of lived emotion, and since these are necessary aspects of emotion, nor can descriptions invoke emotion. Since Douglass' narrative is meant to inspire action, which can only be done through evoking emotion, a description of the singer's joy would fail to reach its goal. 

This was an intentional strategy for Douglass. The dichotomy of the stories reinforces the central message of his work: Slavery is an institution defined by cruelty, where brief glimpses of joy cannot mask the suffering of the enslaved. His focus on the long sorrows and short joys both mirrors the experience of enslaved people and acts as a powerful narrative strategy to compel readers to confront the urgent need for change.