that this imprisonment was a moral wrong and an unnatural state, and he therefore knew it as something to be escaped and shunned and, ultimately, eliminated from the face of the earth. It was not merely his own imprisonment that concerned him, but rather the imprisonment of all slaves and all people who deserved their birthright of freedom. This freedom was not something merely for the white person, but rather was something for everyone, a state into which everyone should be born and would be were it not for slavery.
While still a slave, Douglass comes to doubt himself and his life, feeling that he may never be able to escape from this prison into which he has been born. He often wishes himself dead. He has a fear that holds him back, and though he yearns for freedom, he is afraid to take the overt act that will send him on his search for it. This is a feeling he has to overcome before he can assert himself through his escape. Once he is free, though, and has not only tasted the joys
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