Learning How to Read and Write: Frederick Douglass' Life
This is learning to read and write Frederick Douglass summary paper in which his life story is analysed. To start with, without scholarly the slaves were not treated equal to the masters as the slave owners whom had high quality literacy. Frederick Douglass knew education was important learning to read gave him a different perception on life.
The persecution of slaves, not being literate in my opinion is because the slave owners wanted the slaves to believe only what they had taught them as slaves. By not educating slaves properly they weren’t looked at being human. Consequently, Douglass is motivated to get literate with ingenious strategies. He began to make friends with the white boys he will meet in the street while running errands in town. Frederick on his way out of the hugh’s house always took a book and bread which which was very fortunate for him to have when he left for town. The boys, who were nice enough to willingly teach him, would be paid in bread which he was allowed to have plenty of form the hughs family. The white boys, who were teaching him, were consider poor compared to the family that referred to Frederick “chattel'.
Restriction in education is one of the most severe traumas during the difficult time period. Douglass faces a great hardship in his childhood since slaves were not able to be literate. He was under surveillance from his master and was short in resources. Obviously, his experience impacted the readers about how much forbade the knowledge and its extremely hard to pursuit in that era. Another most miserable trauma caused by racism is the fear.
In the learning to read and write by Frederick Douglass summary story he described how scared he was in his learning. Douglass wonders if learning to read wasn’t more of a curse than a blessing, the more he learns the more it hurts to know that he’s a slave. Once he had difficulty to understand the meaning of the word “abolition”, but he was terrified to ask as he says, “I did not dare to ask anyone about its meaning, for I was satisfied that that it was something they want me to know very little about”. Meanwhile, he met two Irishmen whom suggested him to run to dispose of the status of slave, but he “feared they might be treacherous”. Deep down his heart as a slave he had suffered lots of perilous situations, so it has become a strong sense of fear that the white men could possibly betray him so as to gain wealth. Before that, he was in depression during his reading because he envied his colleagues’ ignorant and stupidity of pursuing liberty. The fear made him extremely scrupulous and conscientious in everything. Racism made people frightened and fearful.
Last, his story makes the him feel the pain in his heart during during slavery years. He worked so hard to learn, and he fought so hard to achieve independent and freedom. The pain inside his heart enkindled the emotions intensively through every little experience in his study. The more obstacles he met, the more he wanted to learn. The more he knew about the society; the more he wanted to be free. He struggles, he suffered, and he depressed, those all revealed the hardship he went through. Judgements and discriminations annealed his mind and toughed his will.
To conclude Frederick Douglass learning to read and write summary, he expressed the hardship of slavery by writing about his experience learning to read and write. The story itself is so persuasive that people can really understand how difficult it was. Traumas were caused by racism, which is a totally wrong thing to doin that blinded era, slaves were fearful and painful while suffering great pressure from society. His story is convincing and eloquent by using personal experiences to illustrate the situation of the slavery years.
