The excerpt from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave shows a combination of argument appeals; ethical and emotional. He heavily relies on emotional appeal of how a human being should be treated, explaining how basic necessities such as food and clothing were provided. The description of his mistress as heavenly and lamblike evokes a picture in your mind of a motherly figure. When she turns on him and treats him like a slave, it would stir up the emotion of a child being abandoned by their parent.
This ‘warm and tender hearted woman’ who shed tears for others suffering becomes cold hearted and succumbs to the evils of slavery and the attitudes that come along with it. Explaining how his mistress was and now becomes: appeals to our ethical sense of right and wrong. The audience has a sense of injustice when his mistress succumbed to her husband’s influence.
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