Narrative Essay Topics. Here are some narrative essay topics to help you get started with your narrative essay writing. When I got my first bunny; When I moved to Canada; I haven’t experienced this freezing temperature ever before; The moment I won the basketball finale; A memorable day at the museum; How I talk to my parrot; The day I saw the death · In the realm of narrative psychology, a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life, but rather the way a person integrates those facts and events Personal Narrative My Life. I never really thought about where my life was going. I always believed life took me where I wanted to go, I never thought that I was the one who took myself were I wanted to go. Once I entered high school I changed the way I thought. This is why I chose to go to college. I believe that college will give me the keys to unlock the doors of life
Narrative Essay Examples and Key Elements
Note from the original file: This electronic book is being released at this time to honor the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. In the month of August,I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Frederick Douglassthe writer of the following Narrative.
He was narrative text about life stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made his escape from the southern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists,—of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while he was a slave,—he was induced to give his attendance, on the occasion alluded to, though at that time a resident in New Bedford.
Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence! I shall never forget his first speech at the convention—the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind—the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise—the applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever.
Capable of high attainments as an intellectual and moral being—needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race—by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!
A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. D OUGLASS to address the convention. He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, narrative text about life, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind in such a novel position. After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and thrilling reflections.
As soon as he had taken his seat, filled with hope and admiration, narrative text about life, I rose, and declared that P ATRICK H ENRYof revolutionary fame, never made a speech more eloquent in the cause of liberty, than the one we had just listened to from the lips of that hunted fugitive.
So I narrative text about life at that time—such is my belief now. I reminded the audience of the peril which surrounded this self-emancipated young man at the North,—even in Massachusetts, on the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, among the descendants of revolutionary sires; and I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow him to be carried back into slavery,—law or no law, constitution or no constitution.
It was at once deeply narrative text about life upon my mind, that, if Mr, narrative text about life. D OUGLASS could be persuaded to consecrate his time and talents to the promotion of the anti-slavery enterprise, a powerful impetus would be given to it, and a stunning blow at the same time inflicted on northern prejudice against a colored complexion.
I therefore endeavored to instil hope and courage into his mind, in order that he might dare to engage in a vocation so anomalous and responsible for a person in his situation; and I was seconded in this effort by warm-hearted friends, especially by the late General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. J OHN A. C OLLINSwhose judgment in this instance entirely coincided with my own. At first, he could give no encouragement; with unfeigned diffidence, he expressed his conviction that he was not adequate to the performance of so great a task; the path marked out was wholly an untrodden one; he was sincerely apprehensive that he should do more harm than good.
After much deliberation, however, he consented to make a trial; and ever since that period, he has acted as a lecturing agent, under the auspices either of the American or the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In labors he has been most abundant; and his success in combating prejudice, in gaining proselytes, in agitating the public mind, has far surpassed the most sanguine expectations that were raised narrative text about life the commencement of his brilliant career.
He has borne himself with gentleness and meekness, yet with true manliness of character. As a public speaker, he excels in pathos, wit, comparison, narrative text about life, imitation, strength of reasoning, and fluency of language. There is in him that union of head and heart, which is indispensable to an enlightenment of the heads and a winning of the hearts of others, narrative text about life.
May his strength continue to be equal to his day! It is certainly a very remarkable fact, that one of the most efficient advocates of the slave population, now before the public, is a fugitive slave, in the person of Frederick Douglass ; and that the free colored population of the United States are as ably represented by one of their own number, in the person of Charles Lenox Remondwhose eloquent appeals have extorted the highest applause of multitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. Let the calumniators of the colored race despise themselves for their baseness and illiberality of spirit, and henceforth cease to talk of the natural inferiority of those who require nothing but time and opportunity to attain to the highest point of human excellence.
It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any other portion of the population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings and horrors of slavery, without having become more degraded in the scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent.
Nothing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for centuries!
It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to brutalize every noble faculty of man. An American sailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa, where he was kept in slavery for three years, was, at the expiration of that period, found to be imbruted and stultified—he had lost all reasoning power; and having forgotten his native language, narrative text about life, could only utter some savage gibberish between Arabic and English, which nobody could understand, and which even he himself found difficulty in pronouncing.
So much for the humanizing influence of The Domestic Institution! Douglass has very properly narrative text about life to write his own Narrative, in his own style, narrative text about life, and according to the best of his ability, rather than to employ some one else.
It is, therefore, entirely his own production; and, considering how long and dark was the career he had to run as a slave,—how few have been his opportunities to improve his mind since he broke his iron fetters,—it is, in my judgment, highly creditable to his head and heart. The experience of Frederick Douglassas a slave, was not a peculiar one; his lot was not especially a hard one; his case may be regarded as a very fair specimen of the treatment of slaves in Maryland, in which State it is conceded that they are better fed and less cruelly treated than in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana.
Many have suffered incomparably more, while very few on the plantations have suffered less, than himself. Yet how deplorable was his situation! what terrible chastisements were inflicted upon his person! what still more shocking outrages were perpetrated upon his mind! with all his narrative text about life powers and sublime aspirations, how like a brute was he treated, even by those professing to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus! to what narrative text about life liabilities was he continually subjected!
how destitute of friendly counsel and aid, even in his greatest extremities! how heavy was the midnight of woe which shrouded in blackness the last ray of hope, and filled the future with terror and gloom! what longings after freedom took possession of his breast, and how his misery augmented, in proportion as he grew reflective and intelligent,—thus demonstrating that a happy slave is an extinct man!
how he thought, reasoned, felt, under the lash of the driver, with the chains upon his limbs! what perils he encountered in his endeavors to escape from his horrible doom! and how signal have been his deliverance and preservation in the midst of a nation of pitiless enemies! This Narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of great eloquence and power; but I think the most thrilling one of them all is the description Douglass gives of his feelings, as he stood soliloquizing respecting his fate, and the chances of his one day being a freeman, narrative text about life, on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay—viewing the receding vessels as they flew with their white wings before the breeze, and apostrophizing them as animated by the living spirit of freedom.
Who can read that passage, and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity? Compressed into it is a whole Alexandrian library of thought, feeling, and sentiment—all that can, all that need be urged, in the form of expostulation, entreaty, rebuke, against that crime of crimes,—making man the property of his fellow-man!
O, how accursed is that system, which entombs the godlike mind of man, defaces the divine image, reduces those who by creation were crowned with glory and honor to a level with four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in human flesh above all that is called God! Why should its existence be prolonged one hour? Is it not evil, only evil, and that continually? What does its presence imply but the absence of all fear narrative text about life God, all regard for man, on the part of the people of the United States?
Heaven speed its eternal overthrow! So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims.
They do not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the banishment of all light and knowledge, and they affect to be greatly indignant at such enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, narrative text about life, such abominable libels on the character of narrative text about life southern planters!
As if all these direful outrages were not the natural results of slavery! As if it were less cruel to reduce a human being to the condition of a thing, than to give him a severe flagellation, or to deprive him of necessary food and clothing! As if whips, chains, thumb-screws, paddles, blood-hounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, narrative text about life not all indispensable to keep the slaves down, and to give protection to their ruthless oppressors!
As if, when the marriage institution is abolished, concubinage, adultery, and incest, must not necessarily abound; when all the rights of humanity are annihilated, any barrier remains to protect the victim from narrative text about life fury of the spoiler; when absolute power is assumed over life and liberty, it will not be wielded with destructive sway!
Skeptics of this character abound in society. In some few instances, their incredulity arises from a want of reflection; but, generally, it indicates a hatred of the light, a desire to shield slavery from the assaults of its foes, a contempt of the colored race, whether bond or free. Such will narrative text about life to discredit the shocking tales of slaveholding cruelty which are narrative text about life in this truthful Narrative; but they will labor in vain.
Douglass has frankly disclosed the place of his birth, the names of those who claimed ownership in his body and soul, and the names also of those who committed the crimes which he has alleged against them.
His statements, therefore, may easily be disproved, if they are untrue. In the course of his Narrative, he relates two instances narrative text about life murderous cruelty,—in one of which a planter deliberately shot a slave belonging to a neighboring plantation, who had unintentionally gotten within his lordly domain in quest of fish; and in the other, an overseer blew out the brains of a slave who had fled to a stream of narrative text about life to escape a bloody scourging.
Douglass states that in neither of these narrative text about life was any thing done by way of legal arrest or judicial investigation. The letter states that young Matthews had been left in charge of the farm; that he gave an order to the servant, which was disobeyed, when he proceeded to the house, obtained a gun, and, returning, shot the servant.
By the slave code, they are adjudged to be as incompetent to testify against a white man, as though they were indeed a part of the brute creation. Hence, there is no legal protection in fact, whatever there may be in form, for the slave population; and any amount of cruelty may be inflicted on them with impunity.
Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of a more horrible state of society? The effect of a religious profession on the conduct of southern masters is vividly described in the following Narrative, and shown to be any thing but salutary. In the nature of the case, it must be in the highest degree pernicious.
The testimony of Mr. Douglasson this point, is sustained by a cloud of witnesses, whose veracity is unimpeachable. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a man-stealer. It is of no importance what you put in the other scale. are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and purpose, or on the side of their down-trodden victims?
If with the former, then are you the foe of God and man. If with the latter, what are you prepared to do and dare in their behalf? Be faithful, be vigilant, be untiring in your efforts to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. One might, indeed, rest sufficiently satisfied with what, it is evident, narrative text about life, must be, in general, the results of such a relation, without seeking farther to find whether they have followed in every instance.
I remember that, inmany were waiting for the results of the West India experiment, before they could come into our ranks. few of that number have come with them, as converts. A man must be disposed to judge of emancipation by other tests than whether it has increased the produce of sugar,—and to hate slavery for other reasons than because it starves men and whips women,—before he is ready to lay the first stone of his anti-slavery life. In connection with this, there is one circumstance which makes your recollections peculiarly valuable, and renders your early insight the more remarkable.
You come from that part of the country where we are told slavery appears with its fairest features, narrative text about life. Let us hear, then, what it is at its best estate—gaze on its bright side, if it has one; and then imagination may task her powers to add dark lines to the picture, as she travels southward to that for the colored man Valley of the Shadow of Death, where the Mississippi sweeps along.
Again, we have known you long, and can put the most entire confidence in your truth, candor, and sincerity. Every one who has heard you speak has felt, and, I am confident, every one who reads your book will feel, persuaded that you give them a fair specimen of the whole truth, narrative text about life. No one-sided portrait,—no wholesale complaints,—but strict justice done, whenever individual kindliness has neutralized, for a moment, the deadly system with which it was strangely allied.
Tell us whether, after all, the half-free colored man of Massachusetts is worse off than the pampered slave of the rice swamps! In reading your life, no one can say that we have unfairly picked out some rare specimens of cruelty. We know that the bitter drops, which even you have drained from the cup, are no incidental aggravations, no individual ills, but such as must mingle always and necessarily in the lot of every slave.
They are the essential ingredients, not the occasional results, of the system.
The Egg - A Short Story
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Personal narrative is a form of writing in which the writer relates one event or experience from their life. Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others, as they get to experience your feelings and actions through your blogger.com may also see narrative summary Narrative Essay Topics. Here are some narrative essay topics to help you get started with your narrative essay writing. When I got my first bunny; When I moved to Canada; I haven’t experienced this freezing temperature ever before; The moment I won the basketball finale; A memorable day at the museum; How I talk to my parrot; The day I saw the death · Narrative text can help a reader to develop a better sense of analysis and a greater understanding of human relationships. Novels, memoirs and biographies often illustrate universal themes and complex issues that lead to an increased awareness of how individuals, groups and cultures interact
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