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"NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS" (FREDERICK DOUGLASS).
Term Paper ID:24170
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Essay Subject:
Examines ways slave used education & literacy to gain & express his freedom in autobiography.... More...
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6 Pages / 1350 Words
1 sources, 11 Citations,
MLA Format
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Paper Abstract:
Examines ways slave used education & literacy to gain & express his freedom in autobiography.
Paper Introduction:
This study will examine the ways in which Frederick Douglass used education and literacy to gain and express his freedom in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. The opening pages of Douglass' autobiography include no sign of freedom. Slaves have their freedom stripped from them by the horrors of slavery, and slaveowners commit those horrors. An essential part of being a free human being, for Douglass, involves education, literacy and self-awareness. The slave with no education, no awareness of his or her position, no ability to read the thoughts of others, and no hope for the future is not fully a human being. The slaveholders kept the slaves uneducated because that made controlling them easier. Literate and free-thinking individuals are harder to control than a group of frightened illiterates whose only reality is that
Text of the Paper:
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Perhaps, as Douglass says, an act of Providence brought him toBaltimore and to the woman who first began teaching him to read and write,but Douglass' eventual freedom and prosperity are also the result of hisown desire for education and liberty and his determination to takeadvantage of the opportunities as they arise. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. . The slave with no education, no awareness of his or herposition, no ability to read the thoughts of others, and no hope for thefuture is not fully a human being. . Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher. . First, learning toread and write would lead to disobedience on the part of the slave; second,it would make the slave unhappy. As Douglass says, onlythe gift of God sent him to Baltimore, where his own education began andkept him from the dark fate of most other slaves (75). If you teach that nigger . In fact, when he is sent to Baltimore, still as a slave but inimproved circumstances, Douglass sees the move as a gift from God, orProvidence. The illiteracy of Douglass and the other slaves was necessary, then,from the slaveholders' perspective, for two reasons. Even today, with slavery long dead,human beings are not truly free to use their talents to the fullest becausethey are uneducated or undereducated. . . That the womanwho first teaches him the alphabet becomes increasingly evil as a part ofbeing a slaveholder does not matter. I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read (78-79). Thinking for oneself leads to having one's own thoughts separatefrom the slaveholder, a fact terrifying to those slaveholders: "If oneslave refused to be corrected," other slaves would disobey and "the resultwould be the freedom of the slaves, and the enslavement of the whites"(67). . Finally, Douglass does escape from slavery and reaches the free stateof New York. . . I finally succeeded in learning to read (82).Ironically, Douglass was better fed than some of the poor white children,with whom he traded bread in return for "that more valuable bread ofknowledge" (83). Both reasons are based on the racistbelief that blacks are inferior to whites, that they are in fact born to beslaves, to have no freedom, to merely obey, and are never to becomeliterate and educated, for their own good and the good of the slaveholders.This racism held sway in the lives of most slaves. Hecontinued using street boys to educate himself, this time to learn to writethe alphabet. The slaveholders kept the slavesuneducated because that made controlling them easier. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. The dialogue ends with the slaveholder's voluntary liberation ofthe slave. . The entire evil lie of slavery and its relationto reading and writing became clear for the first time: I now understood . The awareness that slavery is an abomination against God andhumanity obviously leads to Douglass' awareness of his own terriblecircumstances. Her husband, however, tries tostop Douglass' education: If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. . Therefore, the book focuses on the situation of Douglass himself as aslave on a journey toward freedom, beginning with education and continuingwith a lifelong struggle to control one's own destiny in the context ofGod's will. Slaves have their freedom stripped from them by the horrors ofslavery, and slaveowners commit those horrors. . New York: Penguin, 1982.----------------------- 6 What matters are that Providence senthim to her and that his literacy commences. An essential part of being afree human being, for Douglass, involves education, literacy and self-awareness. . . . how to read, there would be no keeping him. . In other words, Douglass gains from books not only theideas of other human beings which encourage and inspire him, but alsothoughts which help him complete his own half-finished insights into hisown situation in life. At times,he sees literacy as a curse rather a blessing, but he struggles on,learning to write as he learned to read, one gradual step at a time,beginning with the letters used by ship carpenters to mark wood. The beginning of Douglass' verbal education is not in books but inslave songs, songs which Douglass says "breathed the prayer and complaintof souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish . The book is important to Douglass' education because it shedlight on the lies behind slavery: "The moral which I gained from thedialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder"(84). However, the book is also crucial in Douglass' life because it showedthe power that literacy has in advancing his struggle for freedom. When Douglass is only 12, he discovers a book featuring a dialoguebetween a slave and a slaveholder. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, AnAmerican Slave. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world . Literacy is clearly a serious threat to slavery. With their kindly aid, . . Through his reading, Douglass entersinto a fellowship with other thinkers, a fellowship which the entire systemof slavery is working to prevent him from entering. Douglass' slow gathering of literacynot only gives him the power to live and prosper when he finally flees tofreedom, but also gives him the courage and inspiration to endure theinhumane suffering of slavery itself. was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. His faith in a loving God is as much a part of his growthtoward freedom as is his eventual education and literacy. This study will examine the ways in which Frederick Douglass usededucation and literacy to gain and express his freedom in hisautobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An AmericanSlave. The racist system of slavery and the mistress and master in Baltimoreare determined to keep Douglass uneducated, but Douglass is more determinedto educate himself by whatever means are necessary: The plan which I adopted . Ironically, Douglass says that hearing the man state aloud thereasons why slaves should not be educated ignited in Douglass the ardentdesire to become educated. Douglass is torn by the knowledge he wins from reading. "That education and slavery wereincompatible with each other" is obviously as clear to the woman as it isto Douglass (82). It would make him discontented and unhappy (78). Theideas contained in the book "gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my ownsoul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for wantof utterance" (84). He begins to realize his thoughts do not exist inisolation from other human beings. The mistress not only refuses to teach himnow, but she becomes dedicated to stop him from teaching himself or evenfrom trying to read a newspaper. To those songs Itrace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character ofslavery" (58). The slave is educated and articulate andthoroughly dismantles all of the slaveholder's arguments in support ofslavery. The opening pages of Douglass' autobiography include no sign offreedom. Douglass grabs every opportunity to advance his reading ndwriting: "During this time, my copy-book was the board fence, brick wall,and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump of chalk" (87). It would forever unfit him to be a slave . . . He learnsabout freedom, but he sees no chance of attaining such freedom. At that point, Douglass feels the longing for freedom,although his desire is still limited by his powerlessness. This powerlessness was the key to the continuing success of slavery.Even one educated slave was a threat to most slaveholders, because aliterate, educated slave was a slave who was able to think for himself orherself. Douglass' struggle for literacy can be fairly compared to hisstruggle for freedom because in a very real sense the power gained bylearning to read and write is necessary if one is to be truly a free humanbeing among other free human beings. Finding freedom at last, Douglass argues that the slaveappreciates freedom more than the always free man, for the recovery ofone's manhood, of one's humanity, after having not had it for so long, issweeter than having had it all along: "It was a happy moment, the raptureof which can be understood only by those who have been slaves" (15 ). From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom . In the house in Baltimore, for example, the efforts of the mistressto teach him are ended by the master, but Douglass' desire for literacy andthe freedom associated with it now in his mind drive him "to variousstratagems" of self-education. Work CitedDouglass, Frederick. Literate and free-thinking individuals are harder to control than a group of frightenedilliterates whose only reality is that imposed by the slaveholders. His readings teach him about abolitionists and runaway slaves, and hedetermines to flee slavery himself when the opportunity presented itself.In the meantime, the horrors and degradation of slavery continue forDouglass, who is shipped about from slaveholder to slaveholder like ananimal. the white man's power to enslave the black man . He comes to despair, considers suicide and murder, but is re-inspired when he physically resists and fights one of his masters.
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