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Diary of a Madman

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In “Diary of a Madman,” the author borrows a madman’s perspective to attack some people’s social appearances. The madman begins his diary with his consciousness of the moonlight. He feels refreshing when he sees the moonlight, but it immediately changes with no moonlight in the diary 2 and he warns himself to be careful of something dangerous. The development of the diary reveals that he is a person who is paranoid. He feels uncomfortable with people’s stares, and he feels there are unfriendliness in people’ eyes which come from their hearts. His irrationality causes him to suspect his elder brother, neighbors, passengers, children, and dogs want to eat his flesh. His family tries to lock him inside a room so that he will not get into any troubles. He concludes that people are cannibals after he overheard a farmer’s report from a nearby village.

He is so obsessed with cannibalism that he wants to study it to fully understand it. He studies a history textbook and he finds out that the single phrase “EAT PEOPLE” is written between the lines (Lu 246). As a consequence, he treats everyone with distrust because he is afraid that he is going to be eaten. When the doctor says to his elder brother “To be eaten as soon as possible!” (Lu 247) The doctor simply means that the patient should take his medicine as soon as possible to cure the illness. However, he misunderstands the doctor’s phrase and accuses that his elder brother wants to collaborate with the doctor to eat him too. He also tries to accuse that his elder brother of eating their little sister even though he does not have any evidences to support this conclusion. He is disgusted that he may also eat some of his sister’s flesh without knowing.

It is unexpected that he knows that other people label him as a madman because he does not fully lose his ability to think clearly- In the preface, he is said to be cured of his disease. As a result, he is not at all an irrational human being. When he states that “People want to eat others and at the same time they’re afraid that other people are going to eat them” (Lu 250). He shows his contempt of the way that society works. The rich people who appear benevolent are oppressive of the poor people’s labors and resources. The people at the top of the social ladder are figuratively eating the people at the bottom rung to obtain their economic, social and political powers. There is deeper meaning when he says that “And yet all they’d have to do is turn back-change-and then everything would be fine”(Lu 251). He mentions the word “change” three times in the dairy to emphasize his innocent and good intentions. At last, when he calls out to the children because he wants to save the children who haven’t been corrupted by the society.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter 1-9

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Frederick Douglass identifies his life events to emphasize the cruelty and immorality of slavery in two perspectives. As a participant, Douglass uses his personal experience to reflect typical slaves’ experiences in his first chapter of the Narrative. For example, Douglass has no right to know his birthday, and he is denied of his mother’s love and care. Douglass analyzes his shortage to show that slaveholders desperately keep their slaves “ignorant” in order to gain power and control over their slaves. Slaveholders can achieve this purpose by taking away information about slaves’ identity and separating children from their mothers at a very early age” (256). As an observer, Douglass witnesses the brutality of overseers and experiences bloody scenes of beating slaves to death. Douglass also reflects on the songs that slaves sing exultingly which he, as a slave, does not understand “the deep meanings of those rude and apparent incoherent songs’ (242). He now understands that the singing is  expression of slaves’ cries.

Douglass focuses on his master’s plantation and overseers in chapter 3 and 4 to pinpoint the wrongness and effects of punishments. Moreover, he wants to seek sympathy for murdering slaves that slaveholders are not hold responsible for. For example, Colonel Lloyd punishes a slave for speaking ill of himself. The slave is being punished for speaking the truth which indicates that there is no justice for slavery. As a result, slaves “suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of telling it” (244). Slaveholders act as animals to treat their slaves as animals too. Douglass uses an ironic tone when he describes Mr. Gore, the overseer, as a “First-rate overseer. He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man” (245). Douglass criticizes the imbalance power between the powerful and the powerless. In addition, Douglass reveals that “killing a slave, or any colored person in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community” (246). He also gives multiple examples as evidences to support this lack of justice to move his readers.

It is a major turning point for Douglass to learn the alphabet from Mrs. Auld, who is very kind to Douglass in the beginning. Mr. Auld’s opposition to teach Douglass how to read is very significant to know that slaveholders purposely implement schemes to gain power and control over their slaves by depriving them of education. Slaveholders can easily reap all the benefits for themselves and to oppress slaves who don’t have the knowledge to rebel. As Douglass points out, the side effect of slavery is the changing of the human nature of slaveholders to live with deceptions. Mrs. Auld changes from being benevolent to judgmental and harsh to Douglass after Mr. Auld’s guidance. Thus, slaves are treated as properties to slaveholders instead of human beings who have reason and emotions. Douglass shows his contempt when all slaves are ranked for valuation and division (256). The first part of the Narrative shows that slavery not only affects slaves but also slaveholders, and it corrupts the ideal of what really mean and matter to be a human being.