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.