A Cruel Man

          Chapters three and four 

Douglass's first owner was Colonel Loyd, he was one of the richest men in the area, he owned fifteen house-servants and a thousand slaves. It seems that some slaves, were "proud" to work for him, because Douglass states: "It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; bit to be a poor man's slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!"(page 30).

During these two chapters, he explains how Mr. Hopkins, the overseer is fired and replaced by Mr. Gore, who "was proud, ambitious, and persevering ... artful, cruel and obdurate". Trying to persuade us into sympathy, he explains his attitude towards slaves and from the slaves towards him: "He was, of all the overseers, the most dreaded by the slaves. His presence was painful; his eye flashed confusion; and seldom was his sharp, shrill voice heard, without producing horror and trembling in their ranks... He spoke but to command, and commanded but to be obeyed"(page 31). This citation is an example of ethos persuading because it involves the credibility of Frederick Douglass's words, which we are most likely to believe.
After explaining Mr. Gore's personality, Douglass shows the image of a scene in which a disobedient slave is punished by this cruel man of "savage barbarity". The scene is brutal and shows mistreatment in a crude, horrible, impatient way: "... he ran (Demby, a slave owned by Colonel) and plunged himself into a creek, and stood there at the depth of his shoulders, refusing to come out. Mr. Gore told him that he would give him three calls, and that if he did not come out at the third call, he would shoot him... in an instant poor Demby was no more" (page 31, 32). How ever, Mr. Gore's actions were not punished because he used as defence the "fact" in which he affirmed: "if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy the example; the result of which would be, the freedom of the slaves, and the enslavement of the whites ... His horrid crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation". In the quote above, Douglass is persuading the reader by using pathos: this form of persuading involves feelings and applying emotions to the reader which feels guilt and pain, this creates the agreement of the idea the writer is trying to transmit.
Pathos is also used a few paragraphs later, where Douglass describes another act of in humanity from a woman towards a slave: "The wife of Mr. Giles Hicks ... murdered my wife's cousin ... breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward"(page 33); this action was committed, only because the young slave fell asleep and let the baby cry, which woke the mother up. Then, he states again how the woman never responded for her actions (just like Mr. Gore): "There was a warrant issued for her arrest but it was never served" (page 34).

Finally, Douglass ends the chapter with a harsh saying which gives an extra push to the idea he is trying to persuade us into thinking. "It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half-cent to kill a "nigger" and a half-cent to burry one" (page 34).