In chapters three through eight, Douglass does a great job at speaking to the several popular beliefs amongst the people of the time. He speaks to the stereotype of happy slave singing, Christian slaveholders treating their slaves well, mulatto slaves, urban vs. rural, and many other facets of slave life.
I think a very interesting part of the book is Douglass’ differentiation between overseers. I find the varying degrees of cruelty and violence used between the overseers and how they use it is a very interesting statement. I figure it like this, overseers probably refrained from allowing individual identity to flourish amongst slaves. This is why I find it so intriguing that Douglass refrains from using this perspective on overseers. Why shouldn’t he just lump together all overseers as cruel, disgusting monsters? Instead he differentiates between Gore, Severe, Covey and the others. It takes a lot of strength to speak both highly and poorly of the person that has been holding you in a violent captivity your entire life.
Chapter 8 was an incredibly powerful chapter. I was utterly appalled by the treatment of Douglass’s grandmother. It is in this chapter that Douglass reveals how far whites are willing to go for their own benefit. After having his grandmother raise the master for his entire life, they kick his grandmother to the curb in her dying days to fend for herself in a small cabin in the woods. I can do no justice to what Douglass says, but I have never felt as much anger and disgust as reading the descriptions that Douglass puts forth in that chapter.
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