Slavery

In “Learning How to Read and write”, Fredrick Douglass tells his story about the experience he had trying to become literate. He explains how slavery had a negative impact on his literary journey. At this point in time, it was not very common for a slave to be literate. From a slave owner’s point of view, a literate slave was seen as a threat. They were seen as a threat because they were afraid that since they were able to read and write, they would be able to create a plan to escape and succeed at it.

In this piece, Douglass explains how his mistress teaches him the alphabet. He describes her as being a “kind and tender-hearted woman” (148). She treated him the way that most slaves were never treated. She treated him like an actual human being instead of a piece of property that could be bought. But she stopped her teaching because her husband disapproved. She changed her ways to please her husband and started to treat Douglass and the other slaves poorly. This left Douglass thirsty for more knowledge.

Later on in this story, Douglass explains how he would go run errands for his master quickly in order to try to find poor white boys in order to have them help him read. He would give them bread that he had taken from his plantation in exchange for a reading lesson. Once he learned how to read, he read “The Columbian Orator”, in which he encountered a speech by Sheridan. This speech opened Douglass’s eyes to how truly awful slavery was. He was exposed to the idea of the human rights were essential but were not given to every man. He then realized that it was next to impossible to be a slave and be literate without getting into a lot of trouble. Because of this realization, he began to question his own existence. He began to think that there was no point to his life at all because he was never going to be a free man in this country.

It is clear that Douglass’s mistress sparked the idea in his head about becoming literate. But because of this spark, he painfully realized that he was, in fact, just a slave with barely any hope to become a free man. He discovers how wrong the slaves are being treated compared to even the poorest of the free men in the community. This spark created by his mistress caused him leave his state of not knowing what was going on to a state of complete outrage. He became one of the few slaves who was able to read about what was going on in different areas with different slave issues that were being brought up to the public.