Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and Sandra Cisneros all used the art of reading and writing in different ways. Frederick Douglass learned to read and ended up learning more about slavery and how to escape. Malcolm X learned to read because he was stuck in jail and knew he was a great speaker, but he wanted to be able to express his words on paper as well. He would go on to become a writer and speaker and try to bring the black people together against the white people. Sandra Cisneros wrote for a living. She didn’t grow up in a very wealthy family and wanted to go to college and be more educated than them. Although they all wrote in different ways and for different reasons, they all share the inspiration and enthusiasm they had for literature. …show more content…
All three writers were trying to grasp the attention of a certain group of people. Frederick Douglass was writing to grab the attention of rich, white, slave owners in an attempt to present the immorality of slavery and how its abolishment was a necessity. Malcolm X was aiming for the attention of the black population. He wanted to bring them together against white people. He would say black and white people should be separated because white people couldn’t be trusted after everything they had done to black people. Sandra Cisneros had a smaller target which was her family and her dad in specific. She wanted to make her father proud of her and trying to demonstrate to him that the meaning of life is not to be a wife and there is much more to do in life.
All three writers impacted many people and got their points through. Frederick Douglass got the attention of rich white folk. He went on to become friends with Abraham Lincoln, the president, and was a big part of the abolishment of slavery. Malcolm X reached out to all the black people and impacted many people through words and writing. He was a very powerful speaker, but was executed. Sandra Cisneros went on to please her father and make him proud of her along with the rest of her family. They all had extreme love for literature and showed it in different
Frederick Douglass wanted equality as well. If, living during the time Jesse Jackson’s speech was given he would, without a doubt in my mind be fighting for the same rights. During Fredericks time it was slavery was the big picture, so we do not know what his thoughts on these other issues would of been. I feel like in Langston Hughes poem “ The Negro Speaks of the River” is very deep, I see the similarities to Douglass in the sense of Douglass's songs his people would sing while working in the fields. In Hughes poems his meaningful of the rivers back in Africa, how to he remembers them, is like when they sing there songs.
Lincoln and Douglass were self-made, self-educated, and ambitious, and each rose to success from humble backgrounds. Douglass, of course, was an escaped slave. Douglass certainly and Lincoln most likely detested slavery from his youngest days. But Lincoln from his young manhood was a consummate politician devoted to compromise, consensus-building, moderation and indirection. Douglass was a reformer who spoke and wrote eloquently and with passion for the abolition of slavery
The legendary abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was one of the most important social reformers of the nineteenth century. Being born into slavery on a Maryland Eastern Shore plantation to his mother, Harriet Bailey, and a white man, most likely Douglass’s first master was the starting point of his rise against the enslavement of African-Americans. Nearly 200 years after Douglass’s birth and 122 years after his death, The social activist’s name and accomplishments continue to inspire the progression of African-American youth in modern society. Through his ability to overcome obstacles, his strive for a better life through education, and his success despite humble beginnings, Frederick Douglass’s aspirations stretched his influence through
After being separated from his mother at a young age, Frederick Douglass fights back against slavery and human rights. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author, Frederick Douglass, uses powerful rhetoric to disprove the Pragmatic and the Scientific pro-slavery arguments of Pre-Civil War America. The Pragmatic Argument is about how many people believe that if all black slaves were to be freed, then this would result in convulsions which would then lead to extermination of the one or other race. Many people also believed that black slavery was necessary for American history.
Group Essay on Frederick Douglass “That this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system”, and that Frederick Douglass does in his eponymous autobiography. Douglass throws light by dispelling the myths of the slave system, which received support from all parts of society. To dispel these myths Douglass begins to construct an argument composed around a series of rhetorical appeals and devices. Douglass illustrates that slavery is dehumanizing, corrupting, and promotes Christian hypocrisy. Using telling details, Douglass describes the dehumanizing effects of the slave system which condones the treatment of human beings as property.
Furthermore, both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass had to struggle to be able to read. It was their desire for education that kept their dreams alive; however, Frederick Douglass thought that learning how to read was a sin and he should have killed himself (Douglas 27). To Malcolm X learning to read and write was one of his greatest accomplishments because it gave him clarity on the blindness, deafness, and dumbness that was afflicting the black race (X 6). In comparison, both advocated freedom for their people but in contrast Malcolm X wanted complete segregation from whites but Frederick Douglas wanted unity.
Most of his time was in the movement of the abolition of slavery. He did not want any other black person to face brutality, humiliation, and pain. His arguments became very useful in the anti-slavery movement. It is through his experiences of being a slave that he urged for the abolition of slavery (Douglass, 1845). Douglass’ style of narration makes the reader to be involved in the story emotionally.
Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. Douglass wrote the novel “The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass” which depicted his life as a slave and enticed his ambition to become a free man. This novel helped form the big abolitionist movement. In the chapters of this novel, it explains important details like how he first learned to read and write, stays at different plantations, later in life events, leading up to his freedom.
Slaves were not supposed to be able to read or write and this made it hard. His mistress always got mad anytime she saw him reading. It was hard for him to accept the things he had read since they gave him more details about his race and what he was going through. Douglass learning how to read and write caused him to deal with his readings emotionally and mentally. Alexie thought that him learning how to read made him smart and he was very proud of doing so.
When thinking of a historical figure, many imagine a president, king, or general that lead a country to greatness, but never realized some could be the ones who influence the minds of society. Although not thought of as anything, writers and poets hold the key to shaping the society’s mindset without even knowing it. Being a civil rights activist, social activist, and role model for women makes Maya Angelou a historical figure who has made a huge impact in American society and in American history. Born poor and black, she was a childhood victim of rape, shamed into silence. She was a young single mother who had to work at strip clubs for a living.
Frederick Douglass was defiant while on the other hand he was also very determined which had a great affect on his want to
Douglass begins his letter with his intent, an elaborate and formal appeal to Douglass’ real audience: readers of the North Star to bring forth the atrocities caused not only by Auld but by slavery as a whole. Throughout the letter, Douglass refers to his treatment by Auld; further driving his point that slavery is terrible and that slaves deserve the same basic rights as those who own slaves. Douglass is quick to speak about his own experience as an escaped slave and his success outside of Auld’s ownership to help solidify that point further. Douglass occasionally does this specifically to belittle and call forward Auld’s actions, even referring to himself as more intelligent (Douglass 102). Throughout the letter, Douglass’ common theme is one of anti-slavery and often directly attacks Auld’s actions.
Education Determines Your Destination Education is the light at the end of the tunnel, when Frederick uses it he discovers hope. In the story the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick goes through many struggles on his path to freedom, showing us the road from slavery to freedom. At the beginning of the book, Douglass is a slave in both body and mind. When the book ends, he gets both his legal freedom and frees his mind. The path to freedom was not easy, but it got clearer when he got an education.
Annotated bibliography Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.
Douglass states: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass 51). Reading and writing opened Frederick Douglass’s eyes to the cause of the abolitionist. He became knowledgeable about a topic that white slave owners tried to keep hidden from their slaves. Literacy would eventually impact his life in more ways than what he could see while he was a young slave under Master Hugh’s