Veronika Kupková

Mr. Vanderziel

AJ 17051

30.4.2021

                                     The Seek for Relationship

From the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, one can learn that Frederick did not have the
chance to know his relatives very well. Not knowing the father, neither having time with the mother
because of death nor familiar with siblings. Not having or at least not having the opportunity to
have a good relationship with own biological family Douglass has been lacking the feelings which
one has with one’s relatives. Due to this Douglass, throughout his life, has been unknowingly
searching for happiness, tenderness and parental affection, and some type of relationships. After
having read the novel one can see that Douglass seemed to have found his second family which
compensated for the loss of the biological one, despite all the hardship he faced.

One can debate that Douglass has seen a parental spark in not just only one person. Douglass,
during the early childhood, had spent a lot of his leisure time with his master Daniel Lloyd and
kept him company while hunting birds, as was mentioned in the novel, and Mr. Lloyd had made a
connection with Douglass and became fond of him. Mr. Llyod was “…sort of protector… [in Douglass’s
eyes and] …would not allow the older boys to impose upon [him]…”, as one can have read at the
beginning of chapter five of the novel. During this time with Mr. Lloyd, Douglass has not been
whipped which cannot be said about the other slaves and this may be seen as a sort of privilege and
favour from the master or just that Douglass was still a child.

Another evidence of parental affection may be seen when Douglass went to live with Mr. Hugh Auld’s
family where Douglass had a warm welcome since the beginning. Mr. Hugh’s family met Douglass at the
door and a spark was lit. Douglas wrote that a rapture flashed through his soul and it was
something new for him. This moment may be seen as a motherly love from mistress Auld, with which
Douglass did not yet come across or rather experienced, and because of this could not describe
entirely the feelings he felt when he saw Mrs Auld’s emotional look. Douglass had the chance to
experience Mrs Auld’s “…kindest heart and finest feeling…[,] heavenly smiles [and]…voice of
tranquil music”, and also had a chance to learn the A, B, C and to spell short words, whereas
knowledge among slaves was strictly forbidden. Although Mrs Auld stopped instructing Douglass soon
after Mr. Auld found out and this might be seen as a bad action in Douglas’s life, it was quite the
opposite, because in this situation Douglass has learned quite a lesson from his master, which was
unintentional, but still, it sparked the flame and laid a future path of becoming a freed slave.

            Lastly, when Douglass has finally succeeded to run away, he found himself in the
company of many people who have helped him accommodate in his new freed life. Names such as Mr.
David Ruggles and Mr. Nathan Johnson. Both of them had taken Douglass under their wing, they were
kind, helped with payments, wedding, change of name and job search just from pure kindness and
their beliefs.

            During the time Douglass spent time on the farm with Mr. Freeland he became close with
his future runaway companions: Henry Harris, John Harris, Henry Bailey, Charles Roberts. Douglass,
during this time, taught many slaves in the Sabbath school and decided to escape the slave life,
with other slaves as well. All five of them have grown close together as they planned the escape,
they have lived on the same farm for almost a year and kept each other company every day. Even
despite being caught and their escape plan discovered they have stuck together and even under
pressure did not tell a word about the plan. After all this, Douglass was sent away and later
during his second attempt at fleeing away he again mentioned in the story, that he is sad to leave
his old companions and run without them. These companions may be seen as brothers to Douglass.

 As can be seen, despite that Frederick Douglass did not have biological parental affection in his
life, Douglass had found it in more people both during and after his slave life. Throughout life,
people meet many others to whom they get attached and they may become the second family. In
Douglass’s life, one can see that strong family relations may not be found only among biological
relatives, which can also become an icy relationship, but also among nonblood relatives with
“strange” people with who one gets acquainted throughout life. After all, one can say that Douglass
was successful in the seek for relationship and experience many love affections from different
masters, mistresses and slave companions.