When master Hugh takes Douglass's money from working, Douglass realizes that he deserves more than the mere reward of six cents and that he is capable of escaping the slave life and away from the plantation.
Explanation:
Frederick Douglass's memoir "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" presents the author's life as a slave and how he endured hardships throughout his ordeal as a slave on a plantation. Focusing on the prejudice and discrimination faced by the slaves, Douglass presents a first-hand witness in the slavery system.
In Chapters X and XI, Douglass narrates how his hard-earned money was taken by his master Hugh. Douglass admits that Hugh has no claim to that money, but "solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up." And every time that he had to submit his wages to his master, he would sometimes receive six cents (if he earns more than six dollars). This 'reward' was to encourage the slave to work well and earn more, but it has the opposite effect on Douglass. He reveals "I regarded it as a sort of admission of my right to the whole. The fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof, to my mind, that he believed me entitled to the whole of them." And it only made him the more determined to find an escape from the place and from being a slave.
