The rhetorical situation for Fredrick Douglass in his essay “learning to read” was that he wasn’t educated because in his times, slaves weren’t suppose to learn to read and write while the social rhetorical situation in my writing was that I couldn’t be educated because my mother couldn’t afford to send me to school. My rhetorical situation differs from that of the authors in the way that I wasn’t enforced into my situation by any enslavers. The author’s writing persuades the reader to empathize with the slaves while my writing persuades the readers to empathize with the poor.
The target audience for the Douglass’s essay is people that need to acknowledge the plight of slaves, the hardships they had to go through to get even the basic human rights. He wanted to strengthen the premise that slaves were humiliated and refrained from learning anything that could help them to change their predicament. In the essay the author starts envying the ignorant because they were fine with their lives and had given up any hope of being free; the author however was constantly reminded of the permanence of his slavery and had mentally built up arguments against it if ever asked. The purpose of Douglass’s essay is to let the world know how torturous it was to live with the knowledge that you should be free but not being able to achieve that. The target audience for my essay are people that have been privileged to have gained knowledge without any obstacles while I had to struggle and fight against poverty. 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 your own. As a reader of my essay I could see that the situation I described was pitiful and would make anyone sympathize with the struggles of poor of the society.
My strategy to talk about the issue from a personal angle has the most relatable effect for the reader. The reader is bound to believe my side of the story because I am not writing about something I observed, I am talking about something I experienced and who could be a bigger expert on the topic than the person who has actually been through the ordeal himself. The emotional feel of the essay makes the reader more sympathizing towards the subject. Another strategy that really affected the reader was the factual nature of the essay; I shared the number of children under the age of ten that can’t go to school due to poverty and this alarmingly high number makes the reader appreciate how big the issue is and how much need to be done for it.
I agree with the author that slavery should have been abolished and also agree with his argument against it, however I don’t agree where the author envies the ignorant because they weren’t tormented by the knowledge that there could be a better option than what they had. I think that maybe the ignorant seem happy in their lack of knowledge but in order to bring about change we need as many revolutionaries as possible and revolutionaries can’t be born from ignorant.
Douglass’s writing made me realize that even in the darkest of times, at least one person has to revolt and find a way out. At the time of slavery, getting an education was the hardest thing but he did it and made it look possible for others.
My experiences are different from that of the author in a way that even though I had to struggle to get an education too but I didn’t had to hide. I was encouraged by everyone around me and was readily given help wherever needed whereas the author had to learn hiding from his enslavers because they were vehemently against him learning to read and write.
The specific life experience where I had to learn to write from filling in the old writing books of my neighbor when he was done with them is the same as when the author had to learn to write by writing in young Master Thomas’s books when the mister and mistress weren’t home. These experiences are alike and bring about the same emotions in the readers.
I can make these stories more interesting by maybe making them less pitiful and more relatable to even the privileged class. The privileged need to acknowledge the struggles of underprivileged more than pity it.
I can try to get the reader’s attention by reminding them of when they were children and were about to start school. This memory will make the reader start relating to the topic and make them more sympathetic to my point of view.
In my thesis statement, I could use the author’s endorsement of the fact that education is as important for poor as it is for rich and needs to be accessible for each and every one of the society.
I will use the author’s point of view by using phrases like, “just like Douglass’s stance” or as “Douglass rightly points out to the society”. I can transition from the author’s story to mine by phrases like “Similarly in today’s day and age” or “Even though slavery has been abolished, poverty is no less an evil”.
I can use characterization and narration to make my story as much relatable to every reader as possible. The key to getting the message through to the reader is by making the story and dialogues applicable to the reader in one way or another. The everyday language and experiences in the story will help the reader empathize more.
The ending has to sum up the point of view but shouldn’t be a sermon. It should be ended in a way that would raise questions in the minds of the reader. I would end the essay with such a statement that would make the reader question the norms of our society and how inaccessible we have made education for some.
Works Cited
Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosphy and Rhetoric (1968): 1-14.
Schieble, Melissa B. "The Critical English Educator: Examining Violence in Literature." Wisconsin English Journal (2011): 18-20.
