Jingjing Zhang
Instructor Shay Tschirhart
ENGL 1311L
31 August 2015 knowledge can be enriching and painful
The dialogue “Allegory of the Cave” was written by Plato. His point is that humanity is ignorant about the true nature of reality. Once humans got out of the cave, they went into the real world; they can understand what reality is and get into true knowledge. These prisoners who live under the earth in a cave had never seen the sunlight since their childhood. Their legs and necks are unable to move because they are chained, so that they have to stay in the same place and look at the wall in front of them. “Whenever any of them was unchained and was forced to stand up suddenly, to turn around, to walk, and to look up toward the light,
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In the Frederick Douglass 's "Learning to Read and Write," Douglass explains his experiences in slavery and how he overcame those obstacles. He wanted to battle racism against black people, so he decided to study. He thought his knowledge would make him escape from that horrible place. He “consoled [himself] with the hope that [he] should one day find a good chance [to escape]. Meanwhile, [he] would learn to write" (Douglass). Finally, Douglass gained the ability to read and write. After learning the term abolition, he gets the idea to escape. At this time, only white people were allowed to learn how to read and write so Douglass used his advantage to be able to get out from there. Because of knowledge, he could get more ideas and fight …show more content…
Knowledge is just learning. People will feel uncomfortable if they know the depth of that particular subject. Once you know the root, bottom of a subject then you do not feel uncomfortable. In the article "Salvation,” author Langston Hughes shows that a child got negatively impacted from forcing religion. At the beginning of the article, his aunt and a great many old people told him that he could see and hear Jesus. He believed her. So he sat in the church waiting to see Jesus and kept waiting and waiting but Jesus did not show up. "I wanted see him, but nothing happened to me” (Hughes 229). The adults show great enthusiasm but the children seemed terrified and bored. The author uses his personal experience to show that adults feel great guilt and pain because they pushing children to accept and practice something which is over their level of comprehension and understanding; sometimes you can feel that you are affected by a lot of things because you know too
Thus, despite the fact that Mr. Hugh did not allow him to access education, he continued to study by himself with the assistance of other local boys in the neighborhood. Douglass, consequently, was able to use self-education as a great method to fight against the ignorance of his white master. In addition, he taught other slaves in the Sabbath school, explained them the ignorance of their white masters, and told them about the importance of education. These slaves were greatly influenced by Douglass, so although they had to face whipping and beating, they tried to come to school and met Douglass. Since Douglass understood the power of education, he was able to help not only himself but also his fellow slaves to mentally resist the ignorance of their master and find freedom in the mind.
“The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato is about a group of prisoners that were chained up in a cave with their backs facing the exit of the cave, unable to see what was going on in the outside world. They occasionally would see shadows on the wall and would
Douglass is always curious and he never gives up even when he finds several obstacles in his way, because he perfectly knows what his goal is: he needs an education to get his freedom. He is determined to get it even though it requires a lot of hard work. Douglass is sure of the potential of education. As a matter of fact he knows well that knowlegde can change his life while leading him to freedom. Douglass has both the motivation and the determination because he is aware that owing to education he can get to great places in his life, and that education makes the world a better place
Frederick Douglass in his narrative “Why I learned to Read and Write” demonstrates how he surpassed many obstacles along the way towards getting an education. These obstacles not only shaped Frederick’s outlook on life but also influenced him in his learning to read and write. Frederick’s main challenge was that of not being an owner of his person but rather a slave and a property to someone else. Frederick Douglass lived in the time when slavery was still taking place and slaveholders viewed slavery and education as incompatible. The slave system didn’t allow mental or physical freedom for slaves; slaveholders were to keep the apt appearance and slaves were to remain ignorant.
In Frederick Douglass's essay "Learning to read and write” he recalls the journey to enlightenment showcasing the emotions of joy, hunger, heartache and hope. For example learning to read sparked an unstoppable joy for knowledge. In addition the discovery of that knowledge found Douglass hungry for more. Also the quest for intelligence came at a price causing him a great amount of heartache. Finally a simple thought of the future brought the hope that ultimately inspired him to persevere and succeed in learning to read and write.
Douglass writing skills are further conveyed as magnificent through his logic-based argument. His logic-based argument comes through proving himself valid and credible, and developing uniform lines of reasoning. First and foremost, his validity is established early on, when he describes his background in vast amount of detail and even truthfully exclaims how he was separated from his parents, but that had an effect of which he did “not know” of and thus very miniscule. The reader carries many details about Douglass’ childhood, and Douglass illustrates the truth on how the separation did not affect him that much gains more credibility for him. The reason being is any slave who just starts off the narrative by complaining about his separation
Furthermore, Education opened Douglass’s eyes to the reality of his injustice as a slave; thus, compelling him to action as he recalls, “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. ”(Douglass, 2014, p.133) Education caused Douglass heartache. While attaining his education benefited Douglass, he could not relate to his fellow slaves. The fellow slaves had the ability to remain content with their current state of being since it was all they had ever known. Douglass knew otherwise and longed for the forbidden life as a free man, as it changed from an unattainable idea into an achievable
Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the people think that their entire reality is the shadows that they see on the walls of the cave. Plato explores the truth and criticizes that humanity does not question what is real. Plato explores that the human understanding and accepting of what is real is difficult and
“Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass is a personal narrative which describes a specific time in his childhood when he was learning to read and write. Born as a slave in the pre-Civil War south, Douglass was not expected to be literate. However, through strong ambition, Douglass overcame restrictions and stereotypes placed on slaves and taught himself to read and write. Later in his life, Frederick Douglass wrote down this story in his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845. Today, students and adults can enjoy this narrative on how he overcame the struggles of learning how to read and write.
He became known as an inspirational person. Not many people are willing to go against what others believe, but Douglass was. His slave owner thought that it was “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass 29), but that did not stop him from pursuing further knowledge. Education has a powerful effect that makes others fear that one has superiority over them one way or another. Slaves had their basic human rights taken away from them because slave owners wanted them to lack the ability to form an opinion on what was happening to them.
Throughout the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, we can see Douglass state in the Narrative that learning how to read changed his
Education gives hope for Douglass’s life since he began to truly understand what goes on in slavery. As he figured out more about the topic, his self- motivation poured out hope in his life. As Frederick saw an opportunity to become free, he worked hard to accomplish it. Masters and slaveholders believe teaching slaves is wrong, but with Douglass’s
If Ms. Auld didn’t teach Douglass how to write his path to freedom wouldn’t have even started. “After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further” (40). When Douglass got older and wanted to be a free slave his knowledge came in much handy to help his friends and even himself to escape. “The week before our intended start, I wrote several protections, one for each of us” (78).
Searching for the truth is very challenging, as the world today entrenched in lies. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” briefly tells a story about cavemen being chained on most parts of their body, restring all movement including their head, since childhood. Then, he discussed the consequences inflicted onto the cavemen, specifically their perspective towards the truth after being chained for a long period of time in the dark cave, which resembles many events occurring in a person’s daily life. Based on the discussed effects, the author argues that human beings should always seek the real meaning of truth.