The Only Daughter Frederick Douglass Comparison

There are many similarities in the three different stories,”Learning to Read and Write”,”The autobiography of Malcolm X”, and “The only Daughter”. All of these writers struggled to achieve what they wanted or fighting for. Although they were similar at times they were still very different. What they wanted to achieve in the end was different, but they achieved it through their writing. It was hard for these people to get what they wanted because they lacked support. As seen by Frederick Douglass in this quote,”My mistress,who had kindly commenced to instruct me ,had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else… Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell”. (“Learning to Read and Write” P.115 paragraph 2 line 4) Frederick Douglass was being taught how to read and write by his mistress, but due to her husband she stopped teaching him and did not allow anyone to teach him. She had already taught him the alphabet so he had a taste of it, but he wanted more so he would take the poor white kids bread in exchange for a lesson. Malcolm X was not assisted in learning to read and write. When he was in prison, he would copy dictionaries and then later on would read whenever he had free time,”It had really begun back in Charleston Prison… I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day . Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on my tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I
Frederick Douglass was a prisoner, but not in a traditional way. He was a slave who was thought of as property and he was owned. Malcolm X was physically a prisoner in the Charlestown prison. Sandra Cisneros was neglected and was put into in mental