Learning to Read and Write by Frederik Douglass Frederik Douglass born a slave in 1818 in Maryland. He learned to read and write then he escaped to New York to become a leader in the abolitionist. He is best known of his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederik Douglass (1845)”. He described in his narrative biography his relation with Hugh family that own him as slave. He focused in the early writing of his story about his mistress, and how she was kind, warm, with tender-heart.…
In the article “learning to read and write” by Frederick Douglass, he describes about the challenges that he had when he learned how to read and write. He is an American slave who lived in Master Hugh’s family for seven years. His master’s wife was very kind towards him. She treated him as a human and thought him with some alphabet. But her husband refused her to do so because he did not want Douglass to learn anything.…
Slavery, the dark beast that consumes, devours, and pillages the souls of those who are forced to within its bounds and those who think they are the powerful controllers of this filth they call business. This act is the pinnacle of human ignorance, they use it as the building blocks for their “trade,” and treat these people no more than replaceable property that can be bought, sold, and beaten on a whim. The narrative of Frederick Douglass is a tale about a boy who is coming of age in a world that does not accept him for who he is and it is also told as a horror that depicts what we can only imagine as the tragedies placed on these people in these institutions of slavery. It is understood as a chronicle of his life telling us his story from childhood to manhood and all that is in between, whilst all this is going on he vividly mixes pathological appeals to make us feel for him and all his brethren that share his burden. His narrative is a map from slavery to freedom where he, in the beginning, was a slave of both body and mind. But as the story progresses we see his transformation to becoming a free man both of the law and of the mind. He focuses on emotion and the building up of his character to show us what he over time has become. This primarily serves to make the reader want to follow his cause all the more because of his elegant and intelligent style of mixing appeals. Through his effective use of anecdotes and vivid imagery he shows us his different epiphanies over time, and creates appeals to his character by showing us how he as a person has matured, and his reader’s emotion giving us the ability to feel for his situation in a more real sense. This helps argue that the institution of slavery is a parasitic bug that infects the slave holder with a false sense of power and weakens the slave in both body and spirit.…
According to the narrative of Frederick Douglass, during the 19th Century, the conditions slaves experienced were not only cruel, but inhumane. It is a common perception that “cruelty” refers to the physical violence and torture that slaves endure. However, in this passage, Douglass conveys the degrading treatment towards young slaves in the plantation, as if they were domesticated animals. The slaves were deprived of freedom and basic human rights. They were not only denied of racial equality, they weren’t even recognized as actual human beings.…
After reading a short excerpt from “Life of Fredrick Douglass”, I learned about the wretched, criminal, motives of enslavers. I understand the reasoning of why Douglass would rather be an animal. Douglass recalled the moment he realized how to read and understood the true characteristics of slavery.…
The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witness of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism wrote Fredrick Douglas in a letter to Harriet Tubman on August 29, 1869. In a letter to Harriet Tubman Frederick Douglass talks about his opinion of Harriet. Fredrik Douglas highly regarded Harriet Tubman, and they dedicated their lives to the abolitionist movement. Frederick says that Accepting John Brown - of sacred memory - I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. He also says “especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them.…
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.-Abraham Lincoln” Before the Civil War Whites had freedom but African Americans were slaves. This was not fair to African Americans because they were being treated differently than Whites. Some people felt that everyone should be treated equally and become one. That is why the Civil War started. Both “Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass” and “A House Divided” are good examples of how freedom and slavery affected these people. The Civil War terminated slavery and redefined what it means to be a free American.…
Frederick Douglass in his essay "Learning to Read and Write" explains all the difficulties he had to face when he learned to read and write in 1830s. Being a slave, it was against the law to learn to read and write, yet Douglass by risking his life, using all opportunities managed to learn reading and writing.…
In the excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass’s sad tone helps the reader understand the effect that his literacy had on his thoughts and feelings toward slavery. Douglass describes how his mistress had given him “the inch” that he needed to learn to read and how he used bread to convince the little white children to teach him. He soon found the knowledge of how horrible his enslavers were. “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity” (Douglass 120-121). This quote describes how he is depressed because he had learned the truth of his enslaves and wished that he would forget the truth. Although learning to read was a great ability he had acquired, it was a curse that led…
In "Frederick Douglass" the author uses factual evidence ot develope important ideas. For exmaple, it states " Because he was born into slavery, Douglass did not learn the alphabet until age twelve." This detail helps develop ideas of hardwork when he learned how to read and write. "In 1838, Douglass successfully escaped slavery by boarding a train and arriving in New York—a state where slavery was illegal." Here it shows how Douglass finally escapes slavery and goes to a place where slavery is illlegeal. In "The Underground Railroad" the author also uses factual evidence to develope important ideas. FOr example, "Technically the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 required state officials to return slaves who had escaped to free states." Here the…
Imagine yourself at the mercy of another human being. You are dependent upon this person for food and shelter. This person controls your life in every way possible. You are told when to wake up, what to do, how to do it and when to stop doing it. If you do not cooperate you will be beaten severely and possibly killed. Imagine society of people that live like this. How would human character be affected by this power? In Fredrick Douglass' piece "Learning to Read and Write" he writes "education and slavery were incompatible". I believe this true, but did he not learn how to read and write.…
Frederick Douglass was many things; he was a former slave, abolitionist, and impressive writer. Despite having his early years plagued by abuse and hardships like any other slave, he was able to overcome these hardships and was able to become a free slave by escape. What sets him apart from other slaves however, is that he was able to write with such power and become an example for his people. This is reflected in his autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. As Douglass recounts the story of his years as a slave and his journey to escape the hold of his masters he uses rhetorical strategies such as metaphors, personification, and polysyndetons to give the reader of his story a vivid description of what his life was like when he was still a slave.…
Frederick Augustus Washington Baily (Frederick Douglass), was born a slave on the Holme Hill farm on Tuckahoe Creek, Talbot County, in Maryland in February 1817. His mother Harriet Bailey was also a slave but he didn't know who was his father. Mr. Douglass suggests that “his white master may have been his father”. He mentions having seen his mother a few times at nights in Aunt Katy's kitchen. Ms. Hill was assigned to work in a field about twelve miles away and was not allowed to stay with her son. She only saw him only furtively during rare visits at night. Frederick was initially raised by his grandparents Betsey and Isaac Bailey, Betsy was a good nurse and Isaac was a capital hand at making nets for catching shad…
Frederick Douglass was a slave growing up. Douglass had to teach himself how to read and write, life was not easy for him. Douglass wrote a book about his life the book is called the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass this book tells his story and how and what happened during his time. In the book Douglass explains and shows how he throws light on the American slave system and how he made a difference in the slave system.…
Freedom is a very loose term which is interpreted differently by people of diverse heritage and culture. In the 1800's and earlier it was believed by some that it was their "freedom" to be able to buy and sell fellow mankind on an open market, to be used as property for the betterment of the slaveholder's own fortune. In this essay I will look at a letter from Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave, to Thomas Auld, his former master. The correspondence was in the form of an open public letter to Auld on the tenth anniversary of Douglass' abolition. The letter could be considered an "autoethnographic text" which Mary Louise Pratt defines in her essay, Arts of the Contact Zone, "a text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them" (519). I will analyze the different points that make this unique piece of literature an art of the contact zone.…