Frederick Douglass

Slavery has been around for many years either on a local, national, or worldwide level. Slavery has been viewed as a way that people maintain power over others. Douglass understanding of slavery is that whites maintain power over black slaves by keeping them uneducated. In the novel Narrative of the Life Frederick Douglass where he was bound by slavery he tries to execute his freedom through gaining forbidden knowledge and a physical fight between him and his owner. Freedom is defined as the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without. Freedom has always been something that most people struggle with achieving. Many people today would take the idea of freedom for granted, being that we live in a nation where our freedom does not have many limitations. Through learning to read and write and building his confidence; Frederick Douglass worked to gain freedom for himself. In the novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass takes us on an in depth journey of his life as a slave to his life as a freeman. He chronologically depicts his life, from him being a slave as a young boy until he escapes to freedom as a young man. Growing up in slavery limited Frederick Douglass’s ability to do as he pleased. He was considered property and did not have any rights at all. Although Frederick knew he did not have any rights that did not hinder his determination to gain knowledge. He wanted to learn to read and write because to him knowledge was the ultimate freedom. He obtained this knowledge of knowing that learning to read and write is the ultimate freedom because when his master Mr. Auld found out that Mrs. Auld was teaching Frederick how to read he became infuriated and insisted that she should stop teaching. In the novel Frederick states “Mr. Auld found out what was going on and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to