The Narrative Of The Life Of Fredrick Douglass: An American Slave

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Have you ever wanted to stay home and watch movies all day instead of going to a boring day at school? There is a certain man who did everything in his capabilities to achieve at least, the partial knowledge most people take for granted today. From a selection of, “Learning to Read and Write”, a part of The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass: An American Slave (1841), Fredrick Douglass informs of the difficulties he overcame to learn how to become literate. Aside from the instruction of the alphabet from his mistress (Mrs. Hugh), Douglass self-taught himself from a young age how to read and write. Since his mistress abandoned instructing him from the direct influence of her husband, Douglass would befriend “poor white children” by offering Once a week I would be required to meet with my instructor to drop off my work and ask questions if any had arisen during the previous week. This program gave a vast amount of flexibility to manage my schedule according to my own standards. For example, I could now choose for myself when I would start my day and when would I start to complete my work-load for the week. Although not going to school every day was fun, I quickly realized that I had become lonely from the lack of social interaction, and decided to fill this void with books. I would drown myself with tales of teenagers as myself going on to adventures and be energized by enormous obstacles they were forced to overcome to save the world. Simply imagining those years of my life without all these experiences I had within the books is impossible, the past would be dull and boring had I played games all day. For Douglass and I, books offered new perspective on life. He found out slavery isn’t the only options for him in this life, and I found out there is more to life than socializing with other

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