Douglass is just a child when he first witnesses the overseer's brutal treatment of the slaves. Mr. Plummer is frequently drunk. He severely mistreats the slaves, brutally whipping and torturing them. Young Frederick observes that Plummer seems to take pleasure in his torture and often whips slaves so that they will scream, as well as so that they will stop screaming. Frederick has never seen any kind of spectacle like this before, and he is shocked. He feels he is "doomed" to continue seeing the bloody whippings take place; he worries that he is the next one on Plummer's list. Even as a child, Frederick recognizes that his future will be bleak and that when he grows up he will enter the gate to "the hell of slavery."
Douglass states that he cannot describe his horror at how people are treated. Equally, he will never forget what he witnesses. He...
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is especially affected by seeing the barbaric torture that Aunt Hester endures at the hands of the master. A terrified young Frederick hides in a closet to block out the vision of Hester hanging from a hook as blood seeps out of her body from the vicious blows of the master's whip. Frederick does not dare to move a muscle or leave the closet for a long time after it is over, so fearful is he that the master will turn on him. He is badly traumatized by the experience and admits he had been sheltered from the brutal realities of slaves's lives.
As a young man who had known all his life that he was destined for slavery, it was profoundly upsetting for Douglass to witness the way that slaves—particularly his Aunt Hester—were treated.
As the child of a slave, Douglass has memories from a young age of being mortified that he did not know precisely when he was born. As the son of a slave, his birthdate was not deemed important enough for any record of it to have been kept.
Douglass's life was also greatly impacted by the practice of ripping children from their mothers at a young age. For this reason, Douglass only got to see his mother on very rare occasions and usually late at night. This was all he knew of her before her death, which happened when he was just seven years old.
The regular beatings that his Aunt Hester endured at the hands of her master had a profound impact on our protagonist. Aunt Hester would be stripped, tied up, and whipped with a piece of cowskin until her attacker himself grew tired. The memories of the first time he saw this brutality embossed themselves onto Douglass's brain. Memories of the brutal force that was so often used against his aunt had a lasting impact.
On another occasion depicted in chapter 1, Hester had gone out to meet a man without permission. The resulting beating is described by Douglass in graphic detail, showing the reader just how much of an impression it had made on him—let alone on her.