Thesis Statement
Determination, hard work, ability to think, and will power can help in achieving success.
Introduction
This selection of Fredrick Douglass “Learning to Read and Write”, he wrote that he was serving as a slave for seven years to the Hugh family. During this time period he learned how to write and read, as in the initial days Mrs. Hugh was kind which was as he said, "teaching me the alphabet"(Douglass, p.101). His mistress taught him how to read but later on she adopted the attitude similar to her husband. He was even discouraged from learning by her later, but Douglass was determined to learn. It was later he found out why they were against his learning.
Discussion
Ability to Think
Education provides a person with an ability to think wiser. Douglass knew that in order to achieve freedom, he will have to pursue further education, he requested the white children around him to assist in reading a book that he had. ‘The Columbian Orator’ was the book that Douglass had acquired at the age of twelve in this book; he found solace as it deemed slavery as an unfair act. His favorite part in the book was conversation between a master and his slave, where the slave is thrice tries to escape and manages to put up the terms of negotiations for his freedom through his master. After reading the book his thought process was changed, as he was inspired by the speech about Catholic freedom by Sheridan. He was able to understand his feelings from this speech the pretense of slavery and the hatred he felts towards it. The weight of reality was twice as much now that he had learnt how to acquire knowledge and learned to read. After contemplating suicide and learning about the movement of abolitionist, Douglass realized that he has to get away from this slavery life. He was very young to escape and another factor was that he needed to overcome his inability to write. “[He] finally succeeded on learning how to write.” (Douglass 105), the white children assisted him again in teaching Douglass how to write.
Determination
Douglass worked hard and not even once he gave up. The increasing problem related to racism against the black people became a battle for Douglass. When the impact of slavery became very obvious on his life, he studied it again in much more detail. The horror of this subject deepened when his knowledge and understanding increased, he"praying for abolition in the District of Columbia, and of the slave trade in the States"(Douglass 104). During that time period only the white people were entitled for literacy, Douglass took this aspect to his advantage and started to live a free life while fulfilling his dreams. Initial Douglass asserted that he supports humanity by dehumanizing the slavery institutions. He insists that the slaves should demand humanity and requests the readers to acknowledge humanity.
Mental Freedom
He achieved mental freedom from education. According to him, it is his birth right to learn how to read and write. It is his right to have intellectual, spiritual, and physical freedom as he states himself, “I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it" (Douglass 103). He criticizes directly and with blunt irony, unlike people who wrote the romanticized version or uphold slavery. Douglass wrote a firsthand experience of brutality, pain, and humiliation of the South’s “peculiar institution”. Narrative of Fredrick Douglass is a work of courage, it raises a voice against the misuse of Christianity widely held belief that it is God given right to slave owner to buy and sell humans.
Conclusion
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. "Learning How to Read and Write." The Writer's Presence. By Frederick Douglass. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2006. 101-05. Print.
