Narrative In A Life Of Frederick Douglass Education Essay

Picture this going through life without the ability to read or write. Without these abilities, it is impossible for a person to be a functioning member of society. In addition, imagine that someone is purposely limiting your knowledge to keep a leash on your independence. Not only is an American slave raised without skills in literacy, he cannot be taught to read unless someone breaks the law. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the reader is given a detailed explanation of why slave masters keep their slaves ignorant and the effects such a strategy has on the slaves’ lives. In his autobiography, Douglass describes how the knowledge he obtains has substantial positive and negative effects on his psyche. He is given renewed passion and hope for freedom while struggling with the burden of enlightenment of his situation. Ultimately, however, education shapes his fate, and he achieves freedom and prominence as an advocate for abolition.

     It is at this time that Frederick Douglass learns one of the greatest freedoms of all. He is set free, in an educational sense. Douglass has been taught a few reading lessons form his mistress. Soon after his master discovers this, and commences the teaching at once. Soon thereafter, Frederick Douglass uses some smart tactics to resume his learning. He in a sense manipulates the children around him into teaching him how to read and write. This grand achievement taught Douglass something, as he says, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and

Douglass’s escape from slavery and eventual freedom are inseparable from his movingly narrated attainment of literacy. Douglass saw slavery as a

In today’s day and age education is one of the most overlooked concept of our generation. Education is underestimated because it’s easily accessed through public or at home schooling, so the majority of our generation can at least read or write. In the narrative The Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass the concept of education can differentiate whether a black man free or enslaved. During this time period, education is crucial for the road of freedom but extremely difficult to achieve. In this narrative Douglas uses paradox to show how education can be an african american’s ‘saving grace’ but on the other hand, it could also be his worst nightmare. This is shown through the process Frederick Douglas needed to go through to become education and free. Douglas utilizes irony and character development to display this duality of education.

In the book The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass the narrator, Frederick Douglass, tells his story of being born into slavery. Douglass uses his narrative as an argument to convince his readers to be against slavery, and the brutality of it. The details of Douglass’ life are examples of his argument to persuade his audience of being for the abolition of slavery. He shows the relationships between religion and slavery and education and freedom, one having an effect on the other to improve his argument against slavery. The relationships Douglass proves between the two strengthens his argument, accomplishing his purpose for writing his narrative.

History books have told us time and time again, slavery was one of the most despicable acts of crime humanity has ever created. We took our own; we beat them, humiliated them, and lowered their life to be less than an animal’s. Unlike several others, Frederick Douglass’ escape was through the means of education, but his education required a fight like no other, a fight to destroy the demon preventing him from freedom. In the excerpts of his book, his struggle for a life worth living is quite obvious; these chapters enunciate the power of education, the effect of too much power, and how truly devilish the act of slavery actually was.

The writing of Douglass shows how slavery survived into the 1800’s. The slaveholders led a campaign of terror against their slaves. The laws forbid teaching slaves to read. This was a well-respected principle of the slave-owners, “that education and slavery were incompatible with each other”. The attempts to keep slaves illiterate served to keep their minds as well as their bodies from being freed. With no knowledge of the abolitionist movement in

Our first reading of EN101, Fredrick Douglass’ “Learning to Read,” helped our class to better understand the privilege of being a writer. During this time, he is able to learn how to read and write thanks to the help of Mrs. Auld, even though she is eventually pressured into no longer tutoring him due to pressure from society. The relationship between Douglass and Mrs. Auld is both physically and emotionally damaged because of slavery. Mrs. Douglass becomes hardened and cruel due to the lack of sympathy that the mentality of slavery has brought along with it.

By reading the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, one is able to further their knowledge of certain aspects of slavery that aren’t always talked about. In this work, one is able to learn more about what Frederick Douglass has to face as a slave, and even what he faces once he escapes. There should be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that Frederick Douglass—and every slave—faces many hardships throughout their lives. Even so, Douglass remains optimistic that what he faces will lead to a better outcome: “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” This quote applies to many of the hardships he’s faced, as he is often able to take a bad situation and make something good out of it. While

In the same book Douglass stumbled upon a speech (which he called “mighty speeches”) by Sheridan about Catholic emancipation. It is within this text that Douglass was able to understand the travesty of slavery and the hatred he holds towards his “enslavers” and the “enslavers” of others. He felt that “learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing”, and this caused him to contemplate life. After learning what the word “abolition” and “abolitionist” meant he decided to run away. Although this was his initial intention, he soon realized that he was too young and also did not know how to write. In order for him to successfully run away, he had to learn to write which he started by observing ship carpenters labeling pieces of wood that would be used on ships near a shipyard. After acquiring some basic writing skills, which he did by practicing on “fences, brick walls and ,pavement” , Douglass decided to copy down “italics in Webster’s Spelling book” until he learned how to write them without looking at the

In Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1841) we get an account of Douglass’ life of enslavement during the American Civil War. Douglass becomes a voice for countless slaves who couldn’t read or write and he ultimately shocks the nation with his chilling account of his enslavement. It was believed that black people couldn’t write such literary texts but Douglass purposely wrote this text with the use of literary devices and techniques to convey to the people that when blacks are educated they can address important issues like why in a country that believes ‘all men are equal’ is it that black men are excluded from this equality. People didn’t believe that Douglass was in fact an ex-slave because he was wrote like a white intellectual, there was a common belief that all slaves were illiterate because it was illegal to teach slave how to read and write.

To Douglass, freedom is more than merely freedom from the lash and cruel conditions. It also encompasses intellectual and emotional freedom. He sees that true freedom exists in the ability to read and reason and is a mental state; Douglass feels that slavery is not only a practice, but a mindset maintained through those practices. In Douglass’s Narrative of the Life, he maintains that slavery is an abhorrent practice that strips the humanity from both slaves and slaveholders alike, enabled by forcing ignorance onto the slaves.

Working in the hot sun all day, having no leisure time, abuse, and meager conditions are

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass expresses the deepest agony slavery brought upon him during his first years of being a slave. His purpose in describing these things is to display the dehumanizing and soul-killing effects of slavery. His proclamation is to all those out there who have a heart and who care enough to listen, in the hopes that they will act on it instead of just sympathizing with him. Douglass wishes to move those who are pro as well as anti slavery, and he does this by describing the gruesome details that slavery bestows upon those who find themselves to be slaves.

After reading Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, I have a better understanding of what it meant to be a black slave in the antebellum era, and have a better understanding of what form of oppression that they had to face. The fact that black people were oppressed into slavery created their own cultural identity. During this era, Douglass was able to pull himself out of terrible circumstances and taught himself how to read and write. As a writer capable of telling his own story, Douglass wrote an influential autobiography showing how he triumphed against prejudice, and he also offers a positive image of black people in a world where slavery was justified on the basis of race.