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Frederick Douglass Allegory Of The Cave

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When someone grows enlightened, they utilize their newfound comprehension and knowledge to unshackle themselves from their lifelong ignorance to pursue a superior understanding of the world around them. This lengthy process often times entails detrimental consequences. It can be a traumatizing experience to disband yourself from a way of thinking that has been deeply ingrained into your psyche. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave showcases how enlightenment and education go hand in hand. His analogy connects directly to the struggles detailed in Frederick Douglass’s essay, Learning to Read and Gwendolyn Brooks poem, We Real Cool. The metaphorical cave described by plato symbolizes ignorance. Prior to learning how to read, Frederick Douglass was metaphorically …show more content…

Douglass expresses in his essay, Learning to Read, that he truly realized the depravity of his situation by reading various texts about slavery that presented opposing viewpoints. “Learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit” (193). Not only did Douglass’s path to enlightenment awaken him to the degeneracy of slavery and abhor learning how to read, it even prompted him to harbor suicidal thoughts. Douglass recounts, “I often find myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead...I should have killed myself or done something for which I should have been killed” (193). Frederick Douglass's inability to read and write represents the cave. After discovering how to read and write, he was metaphorically released from the cave towards enlightenment. Douglass experienced pain because reading enabled him to critically think about his circumstance. “Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my own condition that tormented …show more content…

Whereas Douglass dangerously strived to attain knowledge and education, the characters in We Real Cool (18) don’t want to be educated nor enlightened and even boast about their ignorance. In merely 24 lines, We Real Cool describes the fateful lives of seven pool players. While others might say that the language of the poem gives off a celebratory attitude, I think its tone rings of insecurity, arrogance and even defiance, particularly with the repeated usage of the word “we.” The first line of the poem, “We real cool” shows the level of education of the boys, which presumably isn’t very much, followed by “We left school” which implies the boys dropped out of school and don’t even value education. The poem continues with, “We lurk late,” “We strike straight,” “We Sing sin,” “We Thin gin,” which all showcase the boys disinterest in education, lack of mental growth and pleasure in their street lifestyle. Drinking alcohol, staying out late and having sex are the only things that make up their reality. The last line of the poem reads, “We die soon.” This clearly illustrates the future of the seven pool boys, death. The boys are living a carefree life and do not want to be bothered by school or education. They do not in fact want to be enlightened. This route will not

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Often times, it is assumed that learning does not have negative consequences and leads to one’s enlightenment What people don’t realize is that being thrown into the light can burn. Associating learning with pain is clearly illustrated in both Plato’s Republic and Frederick Douglass’ The Education of Frederick Douglass. Both works represent people who move past their ignorance through the acquisition of knowledge and step into the light, both literally and metaphorically; they become aware of their own situations and with that comes pain. Book seven of Plato’s Republic (trans. 1968) presents the allegory of the cave and the idea that learning isn’t always pleasant.

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Frederick Douglass’s 1845 excerpt, “Learning to Read and Write” (paragraphs 7+8), shifts from slavery and abolitionism to learning how to write as a slave, utilizes homogenous analogies, parallel structure, and anaphoras, in order to show that although “learning how to write” is a “treacherous” and a “long, tedious effort” for slaves, hard work will eventually lead to success. Homogenous analogies, such as the fruit of abolition and the light breaking upon Douglass, accentuate how the word “abolition” can literally bring a person closer to freedom. For instance, Douglass mentions how a slave who “ran away” or “set fire to a barn” is associated with abolition. It took Douglass sometime to acquire the definition of “abolition” because he had

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“We Real Cool” is a poem by Gwendolyn Brook’s which describes a group of young men currently skipping school to hang out at the pool hall and partake in delinquent activities. The persona is a single member of the group, however he represents the group’s actions as well as aspirations. Moreover, the poem is delivered in four short stanzas, each of which are 2 line couplets, and every word has only one syllable. The poem takes a satirical approach to delinquent behavior committed in pursuit of being cool and a social identity, in order to advise against making those hedonistic decisions, through the use of irony.

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Brooks repeats “We” to create a direct approach to those that are teenage dropouts of school. The author states “ We real cool We left school”. The narration of this verse comes from a young perspective.

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We Real Cool is a poem with a very powerful message behind it. Poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, illustrates the essence of seven reckless teenage dropouts playing pool at a pool bar, celebrating the bad things they do but realizing they could get killed. This poem was published in 1960 and during that time, many movements were in place such as the civil rights movement, women's rights movements, and black arts movement.  The black arts movement had a major impact in theater and poetry, which helped influence Gwendolyn Brooks on writing the poem, We Real Cool.        

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In California 25.3 percent of high school students won't graduate high school. In “We Real Cool,” Gwendolyn Brooks uses rhyme and repetition along with imagery and metaphors to convey her message. Brooks wrote this poem one day when she was walking through her neighborhood in Chicago. She passed a pool hall and saw a group of young boys playing pool. She described them as young and “cool” or more accurately “trying” to be cool.

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When Plato crafted the allegory of the cave he was doing so with the intention of describing the ignorance of man and the importance of education. At the surface that may be all that can be learned from this tale, one must wonder, just who is the prisoner portrayed in this tale. Through examining the ideas presented it can be concluded that the man in the cave is a representation for ignorance, but is that it? Is that all the prisoner stands for or is there more to the tale. 　　　　Let’s examine the prisoner in his natural state, shackled up and staring at the shadows presented to him.

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Douglass states: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass 51). Reading and writing opened Frederick Douglass’s eyes to the cause of the abolitionist. He became knowledgeable about a topic that white slave owners tried to keep hidden from their slaves. Literacy would eventually impact his life in more ways than what he could see while he was a young slave under Master Hugh’s

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To the common scholar, reading is the foundation for the enormous structure entitled “knowledge”. To the slave of the 1800’s, reading was a curse, a source of worry for him and his wellbeing. Frederick Douglass so brilliantly exemplifies this in his self-written biography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. However, his apparently minor inconvenience in the timeline of the history of man is greatly minimized by the fruits which it brought forth. Reading may have been the temporary source of pain for Douglass, but it was a permanent blessing, both historically and politically, for those who followed.

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Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.

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With all the knowledge he was gaining, he began to comprehend everything around him. The things he was learning fascinated him, but the “more [he] read, the more [he] was led to abhor and detest [his] enslavers”(Douglass 35); however, that should not be viewed as a negative affect but a positive one. No one should want to be deceived for their entire life. This hatred that he built up motivated him to continue to further educate himself. As a result, he later motivated other slaves to earn an education by having “[availed] themselves to [an] opportunity to learn to read” (Douglass 69) by Douglass teaching them every Sunday.

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Slaves often do not understand their condition fully, since they do not know life beyond slavery. His unawareness of the liberating power of education bound him in a misleading bliss, causing him to believe that his state of being had permanency and to remain unaware of his injustice. However, once education had revealed to Douglass his ignorance, he says, “. . . I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy.”

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The poem, “We Real Cool”, describes the lifestyle of a few of teenagers through the 1959’s. Knowing part of these teenagers threw their lives away to be reckless, may be heart wrenching, however, it can show us what path to not follow in life. This poem takes place in the late 50’s; otherwise known as a popular time that gangsters existed. Knowing this, we can assume these reckless teens have been known as gangsters and consider themselves liked. “We Real Cool” shows how these teenagers, did not fear anything, or anyone.

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Throughout the ages, humanity has put forth intriguing and thought-provoking ideas through the usage of allegories, metaphors, and symbolism. Through these literary devices, a writer can easily put forth their ideas and beliefs in a easier to comprehend and intriguing way than through merely describing it. One such case can be seen in the Greek philosopher Plato's work, The Allegory of the Cave. The Allegory of the Cave describes a group of humans who are dwelling in an underground cave.

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Tenia Sanders EDUC 320: History, Principles, and Philosophy of Education Dr. Speight 03/01/2023 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave I learned a lot from the Greek Philosopher Plato and his words from the Allegory of the Cave. The Allegory is an interesting read with a unique video about it as well. Many great ideas have actually transpired from his Allegory of the Cave. Plato entails many different things that will require our minds to think deeply into what he was saying. There are many things that stuck out to me from the Allegory of the Cave that I will be speaking on alongside its relevance to society and in my opinion, his reason for writing it.

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