Creativity and Insanity in Frederick Douglass and Andy Warhol

Creativity and Insanity in Frederick Douglass and Andy Warhol

Frederick Douglass, a master in rhetoric and public speaking, was a former slave longing for his freedom. Douglass, at his time, was a new age thinker simple because he did not conform to the idea that some men were less than others. He, after escaping the chains of slavery, public spoke out against slavery. He was an abolitionist and a fugitive when he escaped slavery. Douglass could have been put in jail for his thinking and for his wanting to teach slaves how to read and write. He was insane for pursuing such a goal, but it had to be done. Andy Warhol was not a slave in the literal terms, but he was a slave to society and his own demons. Warhol had participated in a movement of art. He helped popularize Pop Art and made name for himself. At the time, he was also seen as insane for always turn up these replicable works and deeming them worthy of even being called art. While his work was questionable, his fight with wanting to escape the suffering he had undergone was clear. He had never seen himself as a beautiful person nor as a person of worth. Warhol, like Douglass, was insane.

Both of the men underwent situation where they were put in lonely isolating positions. “The ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes were all suspended in my case.” Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass Douglass, Frederick. (318). Here Douglass discusses how he was unable to form an everlasting connection with his mother due to her not being present in his early life. Slave holders would separate children from their mothers early on so that the child wouldn’t form a bond with the woman, making it easier for the two to be sold separately. This early childhood loneliness and separation from one’s mother greatly contrasts that of Andy Warhol’s early childhood. Warhol was close to his mother. Being a sickly child, he spent a lot of time at home with his mother, a Czechoslovakian immigrant who was interested in...