#Hegel dialectic quotes free

In order for him to become a man he must disregard all other beings and consider his existence independent of otherness. He can not be on equal terms with the slave because he defines his existence negatively through the existence of the slave. The master has set up a binary system where he is either lord or bondsman. Since Douglass recognizes his independence from his master he becomes a determinate mode of being and ceases to be a self-existence reliant on another. He wrote after the battle that, “however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact” (Douglass 81). Douglass, who entered the struggle as the slave, left as the master. The one who quit the battle however was Covey, and not Douglass, thus reversing the initial grounds of the enslavement. The fight between Douglass and Covey is a literal representation of Hegel's primal struggle for conscious acknowledgement. At this point Douglass did physically rise off of the ground to a standing position, but more importantly he rose from the position of slave to the position of master. Covey seemed now to think that he had me, and could do what he pleased but at this moment-from whence came the spirit I don't know-I resolved to fight and, suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat and as I did so, I rose” (Douglass 79).

Instead of passively accepting his punishment, Douglass decides to fight. After running away, Douglass returns to his master's plantation and is about to be whipped when something remarkable happens.

The condition of slavery can only exist insofar as the slave fears death more than bondage since Demby no longer feared death, he ceased to be a slave and thus became a man.įrederick Douglass is only able to escape the fetters of slavery by engaging in a battle to the death with his master Mr. Gore was correct in that statement (Douglass 38). Gore was asked about his horrific display of merciless cruelty, he responded by stating that “Demby had become unmanageable”* and Mr.

#Hegel dialectic quotes free

So although Demby lost his life, he died a free man. Slavery is defined as a condition of bondage, and as such, is as much a mental state as a physical one. Without this recognition and submission, there can be no slavery and no lordship. However, Demby did not die a slave as he ceased to recognize the status of Mr. Gore killed Demby, thus setting an example to the rest of the slaves that if they wanted freedom they would have to pay for it with their lives. Demby refused, and in this form of open rebellion he asserted his freedom. Gore, told a slave, Demby, that if he did not get out of the river by the count of three he would be shot. One example of this can be found when the overseer, Mr. It seems as though the slave owners and overseers in Douglass's life had realized this because they constantly warned slaves of the possibility of death, should they revolt. Hegel wrote that “it is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained”* (Hegel 233). One of Hegel's theories is that the slave can only overcome his position as slave by overcoming his fear of death. This means that Hegel was correct about the master-slave relationship and can be used as an appropriate lens to analyze Douglass's experiences.

In his stories, many of Hegel's suppositions about slavery are confirmed, and, it should be known, that Douglass had never read any of Hegel's essays and so was not influenced by him. Douglass wrote a book about his life entitled, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. This struggle ends with one of the beings submitting to the other for the fear of death, and thus a master-slave (or lord-bondsman) relationship is created.įrederick Douglass was a runaway slave who escaped to the north and became a prominent abolitionist. Both beings sought the recognition of the other to confirm, they themselves, as the superior. He explains that the primordial struggle that founded slavery was fundamentally a struggle for recognition between two independent beings. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in his book, The Phenomenology of Mind, addresses the issue of self-consciousness in terms of the lord-bondsman relationship.