Fredrick Douglass’s work is a landmark writing that serves as an indicator of racism, slavery, and degrading practices used by the slave owners. While it may seem that the essay “Learning to Read and Write” depicts the struggles of a teenage boy in self-education of reading and writing, however, the work has a deeper meaning (Douglass 100). The main argument of the essay is that slavery degrades the slaves, the owners, and the entire society. By condemning individuals to miserable living, restricting their access to basic goods, and limiting their chance for education transform the owners to the cold and “stone-hearted” people who are constantly afraid to lose their property and their power (Douglass 101). Enslaved individuals are degrading intellectually and morally due to the constant pressure and restriction at every level. In the result, the entire society is living in fear, the ones who are afraid to lose the power, and the others who afraid to be physically and morally pressured.
The current situation with the constant increase between the rich and the poor as well as the unequal dissemination of power resembles the situation at some point. Furthermore, it is possible to draw parallels between my personal experience and Douglass’s story. While I was not enslaved or pressured, my parents did not have enough financial resources to provide me with the higher education, which is the result of the limited access to the resources of certain ethnic and socio-economic layers of society. As in Douglass’s essay, such approach is implemented on purpose, due to the need to restrict the access of the less advantaged individuals to the high-quality education and ensure that the ruling class will have a cheap workforce (Douglass 102). Despite the fact that people today are not directly enslaved, my personal experience reveals that the concept of slavery is still retained in the modern society. Like in “Learning to Read and Write”, the notion of slavery is encapsulated in the access to the most important commodities and the ongoing pressure to acquire more goods.
The target audience for Douglass’s essay is people who have limited knowledge about the plight of slaves, the hardships they had to go through, and the importance of human rights (Douglass 103). The author used the narrative about the slaves, their experience, humiliation, and lack of learning as a tool to show the transformations new knowledge makes for the main hero (Bitzer 10). In one of the key sections of the essay, the main character starts envying the ignorant because they did not know the meaning of freedom and had given up any hope of being free, which serves as an explanation why the slave owners used the practice of restriction. Here, Douglass emphasizes the brutal truth about the deprivation of knowledge, which is still utilized in the modern world. It is easy today to create the similar conditions for those who do not have the resources. Even in the time of accessibility of any information, high-quality education is a rarity. Moreover, as I experienced, the modern “slavery” contains more complicated mechanisms, including the field of entertainment and false information.
In the essay, a mistress tears apart a newspaper, in the modern society, people being provided with the inaccurate information. While the essay depicts the torturous experience of the slaves, the author makes emphasis on knowledge and. Therefore, the target audience for my essay is people both wealthy and underprivileged to realize how faulty and unequal the modern society is. I had to struggle and fight against poverty leading my way to obtain at least some educational background, while the others received it without any obstacles. I saw a lack of important elements such as classrooms, books, and stationary limits the access to a meaningful education process. In my country, public schools were not free due to conflicts and political instability, therefore, the cost of school supplies, uniforms, and tuition are bought by the students’ families. My parents were not able to provide the needed goods for learning due to low financial status. I am trying to highlight how difficult it is to not be able to go to school and have to learn to read and write on my own. At the same time, my initial aim is not to trigger compassion or empathy, but to show that in the unequal conditions, a society is prone to degradation rather than progress. As Douglass admitted, slavery proved to deprive a person of positive qualities and adequate vision of the situation (Douglas 100). As I can admit, poverty brings the worse in people dooming them to think only of survival, not happy wellbeing.
My initial strategy was to talk about the issue from a personal angle, which will have the most relatable effect for the reader. The reader is bound to believe my side of the story because I can address the issue from a practical position and appeal to people who live in the similar conditions. Another strategy that may affect the reader was the factual nature of the essay, as I was only one of many under-aged children who could not attend school due to poverty. In the essay, the author describes a clear difference between the poor White children and slaves, claiming that while they did not have the resources, they still had at least some education. In this case, it is possible to admit that my experience, while similar to the author’s, still has certain differences. For instance, I had the ability to move to another country, struggle for education, I was not physically oppressed by the others, and I had parents who supported me. The essay contains way more difficult and depriving issue, even though it is possible to draw the parallels with the modern society.
Douglass’s writing made me realize that even in the darkest times, at least one person has to revolt and find a way out. During those days, getting an education was an impossible, nowadays they say there is nothing impossible, yet the conditions for the underprivileged are worsening each year. My experience is similar to the author’s at some point, as we both needed an escape and strived to knowledge as a way out. Yet, some of my experiences were different. For instance, I was encouraged by everyone around me and was readily given help wherever needed, whereas the author had to hide from his enslavers. The specific life experience where I had to learn writing from filling in the old writing books of my neighbor when he was done with them is similar to the experience of the author. It was a revelation for me to identify this similarity and realize that Douglass’s experience dates decades ago, while my personal life story is the part of the modern period. This fact triggers a conclusion that despite the efforts and contributions of the abolitionists, the work of the slave owners still lives in the modern world.
Work Cited
Douglass, Frederick. “Learning to Read and Write”. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. Peterson, Linda, Brereton, John, Bizup, Joseph, Fernald, Anne, Goldthwaite, and Melissa eds. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 100-105. Print
Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation”. Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1-14. Print
