dly masters, Douglass demonstrates how the slave represents an excuse to wield terrible power. The idea that humans jump at the chance to hurt, or dominate someone remains a key part of his stand against slavery in the book. He uses examples from his own life to prove each point about the institution’s corruption. A fugitive at the time, Douglass risked his life to present the true nature and name of the villains and oppressors. The sacrifice of his security in order to present the facts makes him a courageous writer. Douglass not only presents the names of his old masters, but the traits which slavery caused in them. His most important contribution to the subject of slavery lies in his evaluation of oppression’s psychological effects. He presents this new subject matter with a creativity and originality deserving inclusion in the American canon. Although My Bondage and My Freedom elaborates upon the subject matter of the first autobiography, it hardly contains any new material. The originality of his observations of the effects of slavery upon the owners loses the luster of Narrative of the Life. Grasping the imagination of the reader, Douglass firmly walks the audience through his life, mind, and ideas. The subject matter, his life and views of slavery’s corruption, remains basically the same. Although the critic William L. Andrews complains Douglass’s second autobiography “has not been fully appreciated” (McFeely, 180), the first book destroys the intended importance of the second’s subject matter. In the first book, Douglass offers examples of how the slaveholders become corrupted by their own institution, and leaves the reader to devise his own conclusion. “I have an abundance of such illustrations of the same principle, drawn from my own observation, but think the cases I have cited sufficient” (Autobiographies, 68). He leaves the reader, in this instance, to imagine more ways ...
