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In his Narrative-particularly chapters 1 and 2- Douglass quickly distinguishes the myth from the reality. One myth that Southern slave owners and proponents perpetuated was that of the slave happily singing from dawn to dusk as he or she worked in the fields, prepared meals in the kitchen, or maintained the upkeep of the plantation. Pitilessly, he offers the reader a first-hand account of the pain, humiliation, and brutality of the South's "peculiar institution.” In it, Douglass criticizes directly-often with withering irony-those who defend slavery and those who prefer a romanticized version of it. In 1845 the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Written by Himself was published.