How Does Frederick Douglass Use Of Literacy

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.

Mental deprivation for Frederick Douglass was a far worse experience than the physical imprisonment of slavery for reasons of personal thought and independent knowledge being stripped away from him. He always knew slavery was wrong in the back of his mind, yet he had no idea of what to do about the situation, but when he was finally told how to read by one of his slave master’s wife, that power he was beginning to obtain was immediately stripped away from him and he felt mentally crushed. Lastly, there came a time when through him educating fellow slaves by teaching them how to read the Bible, the group of slaves plotted to escape. When the plan failed, Douglass was separated from his loved ones.

     The tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass details the oppression Fredrick Douglass went through before his escape to freedom. In his narratives, Douglass offers the readers with fast hand information of the pain, brutality, and humiliation of the slaves. He points out the cruelty of this institution on both the perpetrator, and the victims. As a slave, Fredrick Douglass witnessed the brutalization of the blacks whose only crime was to be born of the wrong color. He narrates of the pain, suffering the slaves went through, and how he fought for his freedom through attaining education.

The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass' own intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus my attention on how education allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass' view was very similar to that of the women in antebellum America, and the role that Christianity played in his life as a slave and then

Throughout the history of slavery in the United States, it was common practice not only for slaveholders to neglect to teach their slaves to read or write, but also for them to outright forbid literacy among slaves. This was done in order to limit the slaves knowledge and modes of communication, making it more difficult for them to learn about the abolitionist movement or for for them to share their situation with the world outside of slavery. Like many other slaves, Frederick Douglass was not allowed to learn to read or write. In his autobiography; “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass retells how he managed to become literate in a time where most African Americans were forbidden from literacy, and how this knowledge allowed him to eventually escape slavery.

Published in 1845, ‘Narrative of life of Frederick Douglass an American slave written by himself’ is still the most highly acclaimed American autobiography ever written. It was published seven years after Douglass escaped from his life as a slave in Maryland. It describes his experience of being slave and his psychological insights into the slave-master relationship. The main focus is on ‘How he learn to read and write ‘and ‘the pain of slavery.’ The goal of this paper is to bring more insight analysis of his narrative life through the most famous two chapter’s in which he defines, “How he learn to read and write” and “The pain of slavery.” To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into four main sections. First, author background and

Throughout our lives, we undergo many changes and we also see many changes in other people. Our world today has been influenced immensely by the world of the past. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick undergoes many changes in his life and the lives of the people around him especially the slaveholders that he served. Throughout the narrative, we as the reader see that slavery was a terrible thing and that it affected the slaves in horrific ways but not just the slaves were affected, the slaveholders were also affected in horrible ways.

Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, provides insight into those who suppressed him due to ignorance which includes his owners and overseers. Although they each played an important part in shaping Douglass and his mindset, Edward Covey was the harshest because he broke Douglass down not only physically but mentally as well. Covey was a slave breaker that was used to correct the behavior of defiant slaves. “My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!” (pg. 38)

PAR1.As Douglass got older he soon began to realize that “nature made us friends, but slavery made us enemies.”(Norma J Lutz). While he was at the plantation the owners wife had began to teach him the alphabet as ”she had thought the torturing and treatment of slaves was wrong”(Frederick Douglass).He had also self taught himself to read and write. He began to read the bible and soon was hired to read at a sunday school.Soon the slave owners heard of the slaves gatherings and barged in on a gathering with clubs and stones to stop the congregation.

The persuasiveness of conflict is a key component on how he was able to relate his effectiveness of achieving his goal of pursuing whatever his white overseers forbade. An example of conflict Frederick uses is when he went to his master to be released from Mr. Covey’s estate. While Douglass communicated with his master, his master explain “that he belonged to Mr. Covey, and that he must go back to him, come what might; and that he must not trouble him with any more stories, or that he himself would get hold of me.” This answer is not what Frederick Douglass wanted to hear. Since this was not the news he had hoped to hear, he did not follow orders and did not return back to his owner, Mr. Covey. The art of conflict contributed to the main point of this autobiography because it showed that when Douglass did not get his way, he figured out another route to continue his journey of pursuing whatever his white overseers

Frederick Douglass was a young slave with an aspiring dream to learn and further his life of knowledge and education. There was only one thing stopping him: his lack of freedom. The ability to read and access to an education is a liberating experience that results in the formation of opinions, critical-thinking, confidence, and self-worth. Slave owners feared slaves gaining knowledge because knowledge is power and they might have a loss of power, which would result to the end of cheap labor. Slave owners made the slaves feel as if they had no self-worth or confidence. If the slaves got smarter they could potentially begin to learn how unjust and wrong slavery was and they would have enough reason to rebel against it. Douglass was learning how to read and write from his slave owner’s wife. Unfortunately, both of them were told how wrong it was for him to be learning because a slave was not to be educated and was deemed unteachable. There was also another fear that the slave owners had. They feared that slaves would have better communication skills which would lead to escape and ways to avoid slavery. Reading opens your mind to new ideas and new knowledge one has never had the opportunity of knowing.

They were expected to obey whatever their masters said, and to not challenge them. Like some, Douglass was one of the slaves that confronted his owner and stood up for himself. He tells the story of when he was going about his business one day, and his master Mr. Covey tried to attack him in a stable. This went somewhat well for Douglass, as he says “I seized Covey by the throat; and as I did so I rose. He held on to me, and I to him. My resistance was so entirely unexpected, that Covey seemed taken all aback.” Douglass ends up kicking Covey in the ribs and they fought for nearly two hours. After this, Covey did not lay a finger on Douglass for six months. This was a big step for Douglass because this was one of the turning points for him in his life, getting the courage to stand up for himself and not let anyone push him around. By this experience, I think that he motivated himself toward finally being free, eventually escaping from slavery on September 3rd,

Throughout this excerpt from his autobiography, Frederick Douglass constantly refers to the importance of Education and Literacy. He continuously details not only that education represented power, but also that an educated and literate slave would be dangerous in the eyes of the slave-loving southerners. Education all throughout time has represented knowledge, and knowledge is seen as power, both of which could easily corrupt someone, hence why slave owners chose to keep slaves in the dark in regards to education. Douglass argued that education was seen as the key to success and free thoughts, however, both were luxuries unknown to a slave unless they took matters into their own hands.

Frederick Douglass’ biography revolves around the idea of freedom. After seeing a traumatizing incident as a child, Douglass slowly begins to realize that he is not a free human being, but is a slave owned by other people. He is surrounded by a society that devalues him and people like him, and systematically worked to keep them ignorant and submissive. In this society, it is made clear that no slave is special, and everyone is replaceable. Rather than accept this, Douglass struggles to maintain what little autonomy he was allowed to have. When his one of his masters, Thomas Auld, bans his mistress, Sophia, from teaching Douglass how to read, Douglass learned from the young boys on the street. His biography shows him transforming from an ignorant child into his older, more learned self.