My Essay on "Narrative of the LIfe of Frederick Douglass"

Yet another essay assignment for AP English! This summer we read "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," (one of the most inspiring and visceral books I've ever encountered). Recently we were required to write an essay on a paragraph in the tenth chapter. I made the highest grade in my class on this particular assignment (not to brag, of course!), so critique all you please: my teacher, an English professor, approved of it. I'm invincible.

Frederick Douglass's apostrophe to the ships on the Chesapeake Bay is one of the most beautiful and moving passages in the narrative. Douglass is clearly a master of rhetoric, using eloquent but believable language to describe his painful yearning for freedom.
He begins by addressing the sailing ships, comparing their joy and liberty with his own bondage. Chiasmus is an important part of this section: "You are loosed from your moorings and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave!" He contrasts the images of "swift-winged angels," in refernce to the ships, with those of "bands of iron" and "the hottest hell," describing his own slavery. Religious symbolism is evident here as well as in other parts of the passage. Also, there is metaphorical contrast between fire and water, and between earth and heaven: he is trapped in the earthbound hell of slavery, while the ships sail freely on the sea, like angels through the sky.
The first half of the paragraph is an apostrophe, in which Douglass cries out in despair to the ships and the sea. His focus is outward and upward, but he gradually begins to turn his thoughts inward, into his own mind and soul. He asks himself the difficult questions: "Is there any God? Why am I a slave?" These thoughts coalesce into a determination to escape. At this point the passage transitions from apostrophe--representing despair and wistful passivity--to stream of consciousness, detailing the beginning stages of his plan to run away. He answers his own questions and tries to convince himself to put his plan intos action: "Get caught or get clear, I'll try it." Here his sentences become shorter and less poetic, representing his rapidly forming thoughts. Eventually the grow longer again, but this time because he is thinking through the motions of his plan and has regained the greater part of his composure. His tone even becomes almost optimistic: "There is a better day coming."
This paragraph is unique in that it is not narrative, but still tells a story. Douglass's own thoughts make his fluctuating emotions, hopes, and doubts more vivid than anything but his stream of consciousness could have. The passage begins with his overwhelming desire for freedom, and ends with him finally resolving to achieve that desire, no matter what the cost.

Hello.

You do have the basis, maybe just an outline, for an essay here. Your ideas are outlined, and you have a certain degree of evidence to back certain points up. But, your essay relies heavily on the audience already knowing your topic. While this was acceptable for a school paper sometimes (you can't count on the teacher knowing your topic), it makes this essay incomplete.

Your thesis is incomplete by the use of the word "clearly." What makes it clear? Why is it so obvious? You begin explaining the logic, but for the whole essay I never find your use of "clearly" justified. It makes you sound like you never thought your idea through— simply used the word because you think everybody else will see what you are talking about. While this might be true of your teacher, it is not true for most of the bulk of people who will read this essay. Cutting the word is the easier choice; once you have established your ideas more in-depth the word will become redundant for stating the obvious, and readers would rather draw their own conclusions.

Now, your second paragraph. It has a lot of incomplete ideas and missing examples, which makes any comment you present null and void because I have no reason to believe you. Evidence to support your thesis is the whole point of your essay; you already have a thin thesis here (I could not detect an opinion that was completely yours. It sounded more like a summary of the paragraph rather than your opinion on the paragraph, that you were going to support in the body of the essay) and the lack of examples simply makes the thinness of the thesis stand out farther.

Looking at the passage more in depth, I have these comments to make:

He begins by addressing the sailing ships, comparing their joy and liberty with his own bondage.

How can polar opposites (liberty and bondage) be compared? Without a continuing thought to this idea, I believe the word "comparison" is incorrect. A better word, in my opinion, would be "contrast" since that seems to be the natural rhetorical tool to use. If comparing is the correct technique, then please provide the reasons why such a comparison can be drawn, as well as how it is drawn.

He contrasts the images of "swift-winged angels," in refernce to the ships, with those of "bands of iron" and "the hottest hell," describing his own slavery.

How does he contrast them? How do the images relate to each other to contrast freedom and slavery? Also, you've changed your rhetorical technique between the ships and the slave: in the sentence before, you said he was comparing the ships' freedom with his slavery; in this sentence, you say he is contrasting the ships' freedom and his bondage.

Also, a typo: "refernce" should be "reference."

Religious symbolism is evident here as well as in other parts of the passage.

This idea read as blatantly incomplete, primarily because it does not connect very clearly with the previous examples. Because I hadn't thought the examples for this statement were in the previous statement you'd made, quoted above, this idea seemed to have has no reference what so ever. It looks like you gave this line to look intelligent, and it opens up the possibility that you did not think this idea through.

Also, your examples are once again thin. In order to properly describe a topic, many examples must be given for readers to form the conclusion in their own minds. While essays are to explain you ideas and are supposed to be original, they also contain a certain degree of persuasiveness to make people believe your point of view. Again, while your teacher would have understood your references, but if you ever have to write for somebody who does not know your topic, you cannot rely on them being able to understand you through common reference.

That's why clear examples are so important in essays. They remove any dispute that you have not read the passage, not done your research, or have not thought your idea through completely. Make the examples relate to each other and each pronoun have clear antecedents. A way to do this rather easily is to have the statement before the example, and having very clear distinctions between ideas. Preferably by using a paragraph break.

Onto paragraph three. The first thing I noticed is you have contradicted yourself: your thesis says, or at least implies, the whole paragraph is an apostrophe, yet the first line of paragraph three says only half of the paragraph is an apostrophe.

In general, this paragraph is nothing more than a summary. This would be perfectly fine if you used this summary again to help prove your opinion of the passage, but I do not see this passage as anything more than a literary analysis akin to a book report. If you were to switch the second and third paragraphs, and heavily develop the current second paragraph (I would suggest turning it into three; one for each main idea that needed more examples) so this summary would be the basis for all main ideas you want to present in later paragraphs, it would be better.

In short, make this summary be a continuation of your thesis and present all the basic ideas as continuations of the summary paragraph. By making the summary of the paragraph a continuation of your thesis, or even part of your thesis (which I would recommend), you provide a much stronger base for any examples you want to give later. As a thesis should provide your opinion and provide a summary of what you're going to say in the paper. Traditional essay structure consists of a thesis (which is your opinion and what you will say in the essay), a body (which is all the evidence that supports your thesis), and a reworded restate of your thesis (your opinion, and the summary).

He answers his own questions and tries to convince himself to put his plan intos action:

"Intos" should be "into."

Eventually the grow longer again,

"The" should be "they."

Your final paragraph, also, is more of a summary for a book report than a proper thesis restate. You give the summary of what you just said, which is one part, but you do not restate your opinion of the work you just analyzed. This makes your essay dangle, because you didn't finish your idea.

Overall, I found this weak as an essay. I could hardly get any impression of the paragraph in question, as it did not provide me with anywhere near enough information in order to understand your statements. A few times this resulted in you sounding snobby, because you were giving your analysis conclusion without showing how you reached your conclusion. How you reached your conclusion, I find, is the most important part of an essay. By showing your work is how you make other people able to follow your train of thought. And only by showing your train of thought will they understand that you have, indeed, put in the thought to draw that conclusion.

I would really brush up on essay structure, especially thesis statements and general structure. Looking at how any form of analytical essay is done is a good way to figure out how to do your own essays. I take it you followed your teacher's structure, for him to enjoy this so much, but to the outside world this essay is too thin to be taken seriously.

In general, take more care. Make sure each idea you want to present has its own paragraph, there are examples aplenty, your thesis contains an opinion and summary of the paper, and that it is typo-free.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions or comments.

~Rosey

I would just like to point out that you have a typo in the title: "LIfe". You might want to fix that and keep an eye out for similar mistakes in the future. It never hurts to proofread titles.

Also, your mentioning that you got the highest grade in your class, that your teacher approved of it, etc. was completely unnecessary and gives off the impression that you are quite arrogant, which either makes potential critiquers go "...ew" and click away or unsheathe their claws for a shredding to bring you down a peg (guess which I am). Next time, omit the bragging. It will increase your chances of getting reviews.

Now, as far as content goes, Rosey was extremely thorough. More thorough than I would have been. She really didn't leave me much to work with with regards to points she missed that I think ought to be brought up. So I'll just second her in everything, with particularly strong agreement on the matter of including explanations for your reasoning and examples directly from the source. Both reinforce your points and make any essay you write more readily accessible to a larger audience, which in turn makes your essay even stronger.