In the novel “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” by Frederick Douglass, he reveals how his thinking has changed from the beginning of the passage to the end. He gives examples as to how reading has affected him and what his thoughts on slavery are. Learning to read and freedom were Douglass’ main goals while he was enslaved because he figured out if he could read he could get himself out of slavery and into freedom. In the beginning Douglass became very curious and wanted to know more about freedom, so he read books. Whenever he got the chance to read, he did, he learned to read from poor white children who he bribed with bread. After reading “The Columbian Orator” his views of slavery changed and while reading he had “unabated interest”. The book taught him about the power of truth; the truth was that slavery doesn’t just brutalize the slaves,but it does it to their masters too; he learned this from reading about a slave who convinces his master to emancipate him by saying “some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master”. Towards the end he finds that “the more I (Douglass) read …show more content…
In the beginning Douglass thought of freedom as a place of euphoria and peace; he read books to help him learn how to read and write so he could get out of slavery and have freedom. When he was learning to read from the white children he stated “I wish I could be as free as they would be when they got to men”. He thought of his life and the only future for him was to be a “slave for life”. Towards the end “the silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal weakness”. Aiming for freedom gave him strength, but when he began reading and learning about freedom it “now appeared to disappear no more forever” and it caused him to become weak. He began wishing himself dead and regretting his own existence because he losing faith in getting out of
Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.” He wonders why the ‘land of the free’ is only free for white people and what it takes for the ‘human spirit’ to truly be free. Douglass uses his narrative as a means to show us that he won his freedom, he made himself free but as long as anyone else is still enslaved, he is not a free man. I believe the provocative questions posed by Frederick Douglass along with the experiences he suffered in slavery work together to make his narrative a hit and this why it sold many copies in the United States of America and Europe also.
It is clear that he was able to achieve freedom, but he was not able to achieve the comfort and security in freedom. He continues to feel this difficulty even after time has passed, as he expresses, “When the stage-driver found us unable to pay our fare, he held on upon our baggage as security for the debt. I had but to mention the fact to Mr. Johnson, and he forthwith advanced the money” (Douglass 95). Douglass does not yet have the capability of supporting himself, so he has to depend on the strangers for assistance. This signifies how freedom does not solely represent abolishing slavery, but also possessing the responsibility of oneself and their lives.
“The Hypocrisy of American Slavery: Slavery at its best” Frederick Douglass an activist for anti racism and also an abolitionist’s speech “The Hypocrisy of Slavery” was given on the occasion of celebrating the independence day. Here, in this speech he actually brought out some questions like why we should celebrate Independence Day while almost four million people were kept chained as a slave. He actually mocked the fact of the people of America’s double standards which is that they are singing out the song of liberty, on the other hand holding the chain of slavery. Frederick Douglass, a former American-African slave who managed to escape from his slavery and later on became an abolitionist gave this speech on Fourth of July,
From reading the Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass. Slaves were terrified of thinking about escaping from their slave owners. They didn’t want to think about what might happen to them if they were caught. The slaves in the South during the 1800’s were precluded from thinking about escaping because they feared what might happen to them if their master found out. Some slaves who ran away from their slave owners were not happy when their slave owner found them because they would receive punishments they don't even want to think about.
To the common scholar, reading is the foundation for the enormous structure entitled “knowledge”. To the slave of the 1800’s, reading was a curse, a source of worry for him and his wellbeing. Frederick Douglass so brilliantly exemplifies this in his self-written biography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. However, his apparently minor inconvenience in the timeline of the history of man is greatly minimized by the fruits which it brought forth. Reading may have been the temporary source of pain for Douglass, but it was a permanent blessing, both historically and politically, for those who followed.
Frederick Douglass was a great writer, but he wasn’t always. He was an escaped slave who used that in his speeches as a topic to gain the attention of his audience. His audience was a seemingly sympathetic one and got to them through rhetorical questions. Douglass wanted to convey the message that there are many changes that need to be made.
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
Douglass began to view reading as a curse more than a blessing; a way in which he felt more imprisoned by the slave state he was in. Thus, the more he read the more he began to detest enslavers; which nonetheless in his mind would be nothing but thieves whom robbed slave’s homes. For it was not only reading but his ceaseless mind getting the best of him; such reading would create endless thoughts which haunted him and made him wish that he would remain an ignorant slave. Nonetheless, during Douglass’s thoughts, Douglass began to learn to
In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.
Since his early years, Douglass was opposed to slavery and showed a great self-esteem, especially in comparison with the other slaves who did not have such strong urge to protect themselves. After obtaining the reading skills, Douglass did not stop reflecting on the unfairness of the system he lived in. Indeed, Douglass himself wrote about his beliefs and regarded himself as a supporter of the rights of slaves but this was after the process of his regret, emotional loss, and inability to find the reasons for living, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed” (Douglass 36). Even during the time of despair, Douglass thought that he must be freed from the whole life of a slave. Apart from this, after he became free, this man was confident enough to talk to the white people and did not face the inner willingness to be too pleasing.
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
Deliverance from Blissful Ignorance With how readily available reading material is in today’s society and just how much our daily lives are saturated with text, it is easy to take our literacy for granted. For slaves like Frederick Douglass, learning to read was a tremendous challenge and did not always give the results they hoped for. In the Narrative, Douglass learns to read gaining clarity and understanding of many things, such as his standing in the world. It opened his mind to some of the truths of this world, however, not all truths are pleasant. Many people, Douglass included, have found themselves depressed, to varying levels, when the veil of ignorance has been lifted from their face and they are forced to accept the truth about the
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.
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
An education often opens new doors for people, but how does a lack of an education affect other people? What causes such a stark difference between people with knowledge and people no knowledge at all? In the Narrative of Frederick Douglass an American Slave we can see that Douglass is more intelligent than the other slaves on the plantation he is living on due to his hidden ability to read. With his level of education, he is able to see the brutal mistreatment of slaves and is unable to look at things the same way when he was an uneducated slave. The slaves on the plantation do not know how to read and therefore do not view being a slave the way Douglass views it.