Frederick Douglass grew up during an unfortunate time in America when the term, "All man created equal", only applied to those who were white. Douglass, who was born a slave, had to undergo the evils and horrors of his unwanted reality. Born into oppression, Douglass had no means of escape as the powerful white slave owners did everything in their power to hold down their black property. He was taken from his mother at a very young age and dehumanized in every single way imaginable by his oppressors. Despite being dragged away from the care of his mother at such a young age, the thing that Frederick, and all other slaves, were deprived of the most was an education. Education, more than anything else, is what separates slaves from their …show more content…
Slavery did not provide its occupants with any means of education. Without education, slaves would never be able to break away from the persecution of slavery. While Douglass was being taught by Mrs. Auld, he became aware about the reality of education. Mr. Auld was very upset his wife was educating a slave and said to her,
"Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world...if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master" (20).
Without knowing it, Mr. Auld enlightened Douglass to his harsh reality. That not having an education makes you a slave and prevents you from understanding your own oppression. Mrs. Auld quickly changed her opinion about educating Douglass because "Nothing seemed to make her angrier than to see me [Douglass] with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger" (22). As Frederick continued to try to become literate, he quickly understood that whites didn't want him to be educated because of the power it would give
In the end, Frederick Douglass was a very successful and smart African American. Infact of him being a slave back then. Most slaves couldn’t receive education due to slavery and racism.
While knowledge can open many doors for success, it can also put a lock on various ones for people who don’t have an opportunity to practice it. This is portrayed in an essay by Frederick Douglass named Learning to Read and Write. It portrays the hardships he faced and the toll it took on him. Frederick Douglass was a slave who was born in Talbot County Maryland and then became a server for a family in Baltimore. He also became an active participant in the abolitionist movement in 1838. Michael Scot’s response toward Frederick Douglass was that gaining knowledge was more of a dissatisfaction rather than a worthy accomplishment for the reason that education made him realize he had no other option to his condition. For Frederick Douglass, learning
He believed that the ability to read makes a slave “unmanageable” and “discontented” (2054). Douglass discovered that the “white man’s power to enslave the black man” (2054) was in his literacy and education. As long as the slaves are ignorant, they will be resigned to their fate. However, if the slaves are educated, they would understand that they are as fully human as the white men and realize the unfairness of their treatment. Education is like a forbidden fruit to the slave; therefore, the slave owners guard against this knowledge of good and evil.
Frederick Douglass was born a slave. It is all that he knew. He is always treated inferior than his slave masters. He is beaten and au...
One day, Douglass eavesdrops on him and Mrs. Auld’s conversation. Mr. Auld persuades her that reading “could do him (Douglass) no good, but a great deal of harm.” (page 39) This antithesis along with the rest of his statement makes Douglass come to the realization that literacy is equated with not only individual consciousness but also freedom. From that day on, Douglass makes it his goal to learn as much as he can, eventually learning how to write,
Frederick Douglass was an enslaved person and was born in Talbot County, Maryland. He had no knowledge of his accurate age like most of the enslaved people. He believed that his father was a white man, and he grew up with his grandmother. Douglass and his mother were separated when he was young, which was also common in the lives of the enslaved people. This concept of separation was used as a weapon to gain control of the enslaved people. In short, despite the obstacles he had to endure, he was able to gain an education and fight for his freedom in any means necessary.
With the increasing popularity of educational standards and standardized testing many are beginning to ask, "What is the purpose of education?" Is the goal of education to fill students' minds with a curriculum of facts, or is it to prepare them to be productive members of society? If the answer to this question is the latter of those two, what do they need to know in order to be good citizens and how should that be taught? Tolerance is one issue that educators are leaning towards in their own curriculum. Over the years Americans have made advancements in the area of tolerance, yet there are still some presuppositions that lurk within society. The best way to deal with this issue is to educate people with the truth and provide them with opportunities to see the world through the eyes of one who is oppressed. Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself invites readers into the life of one who is oppressed so that they might see of how damaging intolerance is for those who are enslaved by its prejudices as well as those who hold those harsh sentiments. For this very reason Douglass serves as an excellent resource to personalize issues such as these and bring them into an academic light where teachers and students can open their minds to tolerating and defending differences.
Their education had given them a new perspective of everything around them—a glimpse to a whole new world. Upon learning to read, Douglass began to realize how an education could ruin slaves. With education, comes enlightenment, and for him his enlightenment was the realization to the injustices going on around him. With him finally being able to read, he understood more fully the implications of slavery sometimes served to make him more miserable as he came to comprehend the hopelessness of the situation for himself and the other slaves. He states in his narrative, “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me” (268) because he realized that his knowledge came at a cost—he knew that there was nothing normal and right about slavery, yet he had to live as one—whatever knowledge he had attained, festered in his mind and made him even unhappier with the conditions and treatment than
When first introduced to Douglass and his story, we find him to be a young slave boy filled with information about those around him. Not only does he speak from the view point of an observer, but he speaks of many typical stereotypes in the slave life. At this point in his life, Frederick is inexperienced and knows nothing of the pleasures of things such as reading, writing, or even the rights everyone should be entitled to. Douglass knowing hardly anything of his family, their whereabouts, or his background, seems to be equivalent to the many other slaves at the time. As a child Frederick Douglass sees the injustices around him and observes them, yet as the story continues we begin to see a change.
In life there will always be someone who says it cannot be done, but that does not always stop an individual from achieving his or her goals in life. Frederick Douglass wrote the article of his life experience, “Learning to Read and Write.” Douglass explains the struggles he went through as a slave just to learn to read and write. During this time period slaves were not taught how to read and write; therefore, he had to do this on his own. Douglass fought a battle of breaking through the ideas that a slave should not and could not be educated. Today many people fight a similar battle to achieve their goals. Many just give in to society as many slaves did in the past. In life people are not always given the opportunities that allow them to advance
In order for Douglass to reach his goal of becoming a free man he thought the only way out was education. He needed to learn how to read, write, and think for himself about what slavery was. Since literacy and education were so powerful to Frederick he persevered to get himself the education he wanted. …. Douglass knew it wouldn’t be easy, but that didn’t stop him. Douglass realized the “ conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with a high hope, and
He had long fought to learn to read and was so excited and eager to do so, he never expected the circumstances of this to be as dehumanizing as they were. He regretted learning to read because it brought him nothing but desperation, he learned his awful truth and that of his fellow slaves. "It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy." (Douglass, 24) The truth was that the more he learned the more he became aggravated, he knew there was not much he could do. It brought his moral down along with many other feelings, even a slave like Frederick had learned the awful feeling of
In the essay “Learning to Read and Write,” Frederick Douglass illustrates how he successfully overcome the tremendous difficulties to become literate. He also explains the injustice between slavers and slaveholders. Douglass believes that education is the key to freedom for slavers. Similarly, many of us regard education as the path to achieve a career from a job.
Douglass views his education as his most important feature, but he also enables his brain to the realizing of the torture upon his fellow slaves. Douglass was not allowed to learn, because he was a slave, and they didn’t want slaves to become smarter than the whites. In the passage it states, “learning would ...
Auld, he was introduced to education which gives him a sense of humanity back. Mrs. Auld taught Douglass the alphabet and how to spell small words. However, Mr. Auld found out and disapprovingly said “ if you teach that n- - - - - how to read… it would forever unfit him to be a slave” which Douglass took note of to (250). Douglass realized the importance of his master being scared of him reading and spelling and noticed the value in having and education. Having an education and realizing the importance of that was a major building block in forming Frederick Douglass’s identity.