SOURCE: O'Meally, Robert G. “The Text Was Meant to Be Preached.” In Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, edited by Harold Bloom, pp. 77-94. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.

In the following essay, originally published in 1978, O'Meally claims that, although the Narrative was meant to be read, it was also meant to be preached, drawing as it does on the tradition of the African-American sermon.

Typically, scholars and teachers dealing with Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of an American Slave (1845) are concerned with the crucial issue of religion, because the tensions and ironies generated by the sustained contrast between white and black religions constitute a vital “unity” in the work. Slavery sends Old Master to the devil, while the slave's forthright struggle for freedom is a noble, saving quest. Douglass's search for identity—paralleling the search of many and varied American autobiographers before him—is...