The Struggle of Frederick Douglass to Get his Freedom as Seen in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave (A Psychological Approach)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the struggle of Frederick Douglass as a slave to get his freedom and to reveal the impact of Doglass’ struggle against his life and the impact of his struggle for the Black people’s life as reflected in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass entitled ‘The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave’. It was experienced by the major character namely Frederick Douglass who had escaped from slavery and then also tried to struggle against slavery in the North where many people did not agree with slavery system. His nature story at a closer observation, potrayed much about conflicts between man and his environment, man and himself with slavery world as the background.

The method that is used in this study was descriptive qualitative method with the type of the study was library research. This study used two data sources namely primary data and secondary data. The primary data source was the autobiography of Frederick Douglass entitled the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, including dialogues, events, and narrative expressions. Then, the secondary data covered some books, articles, encyclopedia, internet sources, and other writings about slavery and Frederick Douglass’ life. This study also used Sigmund Freud’s theory on  psychology aspects. Basic assumption of individual psychology presented into three general headings: 1) Id; 2) Ego; and 3) Super ego. The technique of data collecting were reading the autobiography several times, taking note, determining the character, and drawing conclusion. In the technique of analysis data, the researchers applied Interactive model analysis which was proposed by Miles and Huberman, such as 1) data collection, 2) data reduction, 3) data display, and 4) conclusion.

The result of this study could be said that freedom for the slaves became the main issue in the 19th century in America as seen in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass entitled the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Douglass, as a main character, told about his real life as a slave and how he could escape from slavery. Douglass became too critical to the harsh reality of slavery system in that era and dared to protest openly. Id, Ego, and Super Ego in this autobiography could be reached by Frederick Douglass in his struggle to get his freedom as an American slave