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Gary Paulsen's Later On Douglass: An Analysis

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“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” by Patrick Henry from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/slavery.html. Arguably many people of color in the cruel age of the slavery would be punished for petty reasons, such as . Although Gary Paulsen’s novel, is considered historical fiction, the descriptions of slaves wanting to be free under circumstances, slaves learning resourcefully in this grim time, and not breaking under harsh consequences.
First the harsh restrictions, the way they are depicted in Nightjohn truly shows the life of slaves during this repulsive era in American …show more content…

As a result, many people of color would try to learn under harsh restrictions and brutal punishments, but would still prevail. According to Narrative of Frederick Douglass” Later on Douglass would challenge boys to writing contests claiming he could write letters of the alphabet as well as any knowing he could not! After writing a few letters on a fence post, he’d observe how they formed others that he didn't know.” This quote demonstrates how Douglass would find hidden ways to learn letters of the alphabet without being caught, or the white boys being aware. He had outsmarted the children by challenging them and losing on purpose to gain knowledge. “.. there were pit schools near her Mississippi plantation. Runaways sometimes inhabited the pits, but they also housed schools.” Just as there were pit schools near Sarny’s plantation which was ran by Nightjohn. People wouldn’t just teach in pit schools, the runaways would make it their homes while they ran.To sum it up there were many struggles that people of color would go through just to try and get an education. For one a person would try to sneak out of their plantation into a pit school or trick a person into teaching them such as Frederick

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Life on the plantation was difficult, but both Nightjohn and Sarny live through it. In the book, Gary Paulsen adds in another character, Pawley. Pawley was

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According to Frederick Douglass and Amy Tan literacy and language can allow one to express our inner thoughts. Frederick Douglass continued to learn even besides opposition because he had been taught the alphabet and he was curious and wanted to learn more and more. Frederick Douglass learned how to read by exchanging bread for knowledge to the little white boys when he had the opportunity. He learned how to write by being in Durgin and Bailey’s ship yard and watching the carpenters and mimicking the letters and also by copying the content that master thomas had written. .After douglass learns how to read he begins to really think more about his inner thoughts and he began to discover the truth of what was happening around that time.

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In “Learning to Read and Write,” the writer, an abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, wanted to learn how to write and read, but there were struggles throughout his process, and eventually accomplished his goal by reaching out for help. Douglass was born into slavery, his master's wife started to teach him the alphabet, but eventually was diminution of knowledge by her husband. Therefore, this circumstance did not persevere Douglass to hindrance reading. Instead, Douglass seek for help from little white boys by giving them food and in return they gave him proficiency of knowledge. Additional, Douglass expanded his awareness of education after reading The Columbia Orator which acquainted with being able to have his own thoughts opening the doors

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From the 1600ś to late 1800ś, slavery was a famous but cruel industry in the United States. The Novel, NightJohn by Gary Paulsen is based on this time period and is about a 12-year-old slave named Sarny living on a plantation. She has no blood-related family and is in the care of older women she calls mammy. Sarny is an observant, quiet girl who meets a slave name John that begins to teach her the illegal act of reading and writing. NightJohn relates and is proven by historical sources

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Lastly, the slaves were not supposed to be able to read or write, they were denied an education. However, in the city the slaves were able to trick white boys into teaching them or mistresses would secretly educate them. Douglass used this strategy to learn how to read and write while living in the city, “I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write” (Douglass 79). It took Douglass a while to learn basic human necessities, such as reading and writing.

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It is estimated that 12.5 million humans were shipped and enslaved into the new world, that is 12.5 million men, women and children stripped of their rights because of their skin color. That is 12.5 million men, women and children forced to do atrocious labor. NightJohn by Gary Paulsen is fiction text that describes the life of a young enslaved girl named Sarny as well as her encounter with a strange man whom she names NightJohn. It presents factual descriptions of the life of slave on a plantation that can be corroborated with other historical accounts. Although Gary Paulsen’s novel, NightJohn, is considered historical fiction, the descriptions of support to one another despite the broken family structures, the resistance to conditions despite

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Douglass befriended all the little white boys and transformed them into educators. (101) Soon enough, he learned how to read. Douglass started reading the “The Columbian Orator”, which taught him more about slavery in result made him hate his enslavers. Douglass states, “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.” (103) Learning to read was also a curse for Douglass because he began learning things about slavery that made him angry.

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Through his observations of this work, Douglass managed to learn to write four letters. Another tactic Frederick Douglass used in learning to write was fooling young boys. Douglass would brag to a boy that he could write so much better than he could. This challenge leads to Douglass receiving “many lessons in writing, which…I should never have gotten in any other way” (Douglass 59). Thus, this scheme tremendously added to his ability to write.

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The two reading materials talk about slavery and how the slaves “masters” acted towards them. Within Gary Paulsen’s Nightjohn and “The Monster of Monticello” by Paul Finkelman, the theme that power is often abused is shown through characters.

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Frederick Douglass in his narrative “Why I learned to Read and Write” demonstrates how he surpassed many obstacles along the way towards getting an education. These obstacles not only shaped Frederick’s outlook on life but also influenced him in his learning to read and write. Frederick’s main challenge was that of not being an owner of his person but rather a slave and a property to someone else. Frederick Douglass lived in the time when slavery was still taking place and slaveholders viewed slavery and education as incompatible. The slave system didn’t allow mental or physical freedom for slaves; slaveholders were to keep the apt appearance and slaves were to remain ignorant.

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Sarny and the children are also cared for by an older woman, Delia, who is implied to be much older than the others, and must depend on her. Referring to the pit schools in “African American Education in Slavery” once more, “slaves would slip out of their quarters at night and go to these pits, and someone who had some learning would have a school.” One could say that the slaves there were supporting each other. They were mutually connected by their desire to learn and teach others in their position. They trusted that they were being taught correctly and that nobody would rat someone else out or cause them to get caught otherwise.

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When Sophia began teaching Douglass his alphabet however, she was quickly reprimanded for it by her husband. He said it would make Douglass “discontent and unhappy” (p. 62) as well as it would “spoil” (p. 62) him. This quote perfectly sum’s up Douglass’s view on this injustice: “These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man.”

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233 Words | 1 Pages

In his talk, Frederick Douglass describes the steps he took to teach himself to read and write. His master and mistress refused him a formal education, so he had to rely on the kindness of strangers and other slaves to educate him. When he saw white children learning, he secretly borrowed books and newspapers to teach himself. He practiced memorizing words and writing them on dirt and later on with charcoal on a wall. Douglas attaches great importance to his literacy and considers it the key to his freedom.

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African-American slaves were forbidden to obtain the knowledge of being able to read or write, stemming from the fear of white masters that educated slaves will overpower them. Douglass managed to learn to read by bribing poor and hungry white boys into teaching him in exchange for bits of bread. Douglass illustrates his thirst for literacy through “[The] bread [he] used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give [him] that more valuable bread of knowledge” (pg 23). This reveals how much Douglass valued education and took advantage of all the knowledge he had access to. Today’s youth, especially the ones belonging to a minority

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Douglass could access literacy in every job assignment that white people would give him. He took control of the situations where he was dominated by white people and made every situation a teaching lesson to learn how to read and write. Moreover, Douglass could obtain lessons from little white boys who thought that they were superior by knowing how to read and write not knowing that they were teaching Douglass. The fact that Douglass learned how to read and write changed his way of thinking because he was not complying with slavery.

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