The Slaves were breed for size and strength. While the identity of his father is uncertain, it is generally accepted that the man was white, giving Douglass a mixed ancestry. Mirroring this, he was also blessed with an eye that could bring into focus different perspectives, just as many multi-racial children today are able to speak multiple languages, with ease. He had the ability to translate in a well-spoken manner between the worlds of the black man and white man. The story of the American Dream, where a young man, born into a hostile world, never loses sight of one goal, is not all that distant in theme from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The story of the American Dream has been embedded deeply in our culture from the beginning. Similarly anchored in the American consciousness is the presence of a slavery-complex. Along these lines Douglass" role is a major one, for relatively few first-hand accounts of slavery as powerful and representative as his exist, in light of the magnitude of the crime, and few voices have been as far-reaching. More recent heirs of this office such as Malcolm X have carried the torch further, just as America's racial sickness still clings to our collective consciousness. Frederick Douglass has been described as bicultural. In other words, he occupied a middle ground shared by blacks and whites alike. This designation proves to be thematically consistent with his biological as well as psychological characteristics. Dual-natured in this fashion, he is made accountable for both sides. This can be seen in his gravitation towards freedom when he was a slave, and manifests itself just as strongly in his vision: "They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. They would sing, as a chorus.words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves.
