Explain what qualities Douglass would include in a definition of manhood in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass?

This is really fascinating.  I think you will find many
different responses to this question.  I think that a definition of "manhood" according
to Douglass would have to include possessing awareness of a man's identity.  For
Douglass, a man is a person who must acknowledge and face the demons of their past in
order to chart as course towards a successful future.  Ignorance of the past, regardless
of reason, would make a man less of one.  Douglass embodies this reckoning with the
past.  He is honest enough to know really know his full age.  This is something from
which Douglass does not shy.  Additionally, he is forthcoming  about the painful
condition of his birth and the separation from his mother, a woman who would walk miles
back to the plantation in order to sleep by her son's side.  Such a startling revelation
helps to forge Douglass' identity, and would help to enhance his definition of what it
means to be a "man."  At the same time, I think that Douglass would argue that
masculinity is a state of being that can only be fully recognized when as many
opportunities as possible are seized.  Literacy would be one such opportunity, as being
able to read and write opens more doors than not possessing this skill.  Douglass'
experience with Sophia Auld, someone who starts out benevolent only to be poisoned with
the venom of slavery later on, is rooted in his learning how to read and write.  From
this, Douglass is able to seize the opportunity of an entirely new world, one that gave
birth to his own written narrative.  Being able to seize such opportunities would be a
part of his definition of masculinity. Douglass would argue that masculinity has to be
defined with the past in mind, so that the future is given shape and
form.