This book is a slave narrative, also an autobiography, the "making and unmaking of a human being," and an identity attained achieved, and realized. The style of this book is biblical, it is also a documentary. It is a historical account of slavery and of antebellum southern plantation culture, it is also written as a maturation narrative. The book is also a conversion narrative, in the sense that he went from slavery to freedom. The reader is supposed to read this as a confession, it is written as if it is spoken testimony, and it is signifying that it is not just speaking but listening. The book is stating that slavery was a system, an institution of rank exploitation. It is a sense of double self elapsed in time, past and present. The selection of material used heightens the book; it is not literal but representational, it is no less real and has no less value. Fredrick Douglass uses a lot of metaphors and all of them make the book that much better, another thing Douglass does so well is that he is very visual. .
During the book Douglass makes comments saying that Slaves were treated like animals in the sense that they were less then human. He also makes in known that slaves had no idea of their birthday or even of time. In the later part of the book Douglass is cursed with a double consciousness, called Euphemistism. He makes sure that after reading this the reader realizes that slavery was a corporation, business, or even an enterprise for economic autonomy. Also that the plantation it self is like a government, there is the owner then there are his overseers then the slaves. Douglass tells us about his first run in with an overseer and that it was very traumatic, and that Slavery dehumanized humanity. He also showed us how there was competition between slaves on the same plantation.