Blog Entry 1

Reading chapter 1 of this book was emotionally quite strong. It reminded me of the courage it required at that time to escape to the north and once you get there to actually speak in public against slavery. It was a taboo at that time to do such thing. I connected this to the people of North Korea who have to escape their brutal treatment and go to the South where they can live a free life. These people risk their lives when they do this, just like the slaves at that time. They are risking loosing their families forever and can also get severely tortured if they get caught.

After that, Douglass describes very graphically how his aunt would get beaten by her owner. He describes how she would scream in pain and bleed, and how that just made her owner even more hungry for that poor woman's agony. He tells us how hard it was for him to see someone suffer in such a way and not be able to do anything. I connected this when m great grandmother died of cancer. She was 93 and had a tumor in her pancreas. Pancreatic cancer is the most painful cancer of all cancers. The tumor would cause her excruciating pain that wouldn't go away with anything. On her last days in the hospital, it was very hard for me to see her suffer in pain so much and not be able to do anything to relieve it.