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Learning To Read And Write Analysis

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Literacy is the key to freedom. In the articles “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” by Sherman Alexie, “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, and “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, the message of learning to read and write providing fate-changing opportunities for oneself as well as for others is present consistently. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” by Sherman Alexie reveals that being able to read and write has a tremendous effect on one’s future. As evident in the following quote, “As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world,” Indians were “stupid” according to the stereotypes, and, unfortunately, Indian children “lived up to those expectations.” This stereotype had already …show more content…

Sometimes, Douglass feels “that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given him a view of his wretched condition.” It is implied in the quote that reading had freed his mind from the idea of the slavery, which provided the motivation for him to escape from his master. As a slave, his aching desire to be free physically increased as he realized he was not to be benefitted in any way if he was to stay a slave. Freedom was now a concept he was introduced to, and it was something that was hard to get, discovering it only for it to disappear. Reading books taught him that slavery was something to be condemned and that human rights very much existed for everyone, not only for the white man. Being an educated black man, he broke the expectation of blacks being inferior, and having his mind opened up to the new world, his life was changed from being a slave to a leader in the abolitionist movement, fighting to free the other slaves so that they could also experience the same fate-changing event as he

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It had given me a view of my wretched condition without the remedy.” Douglas felt that learning to read opened his eyes up to freedom and made him realize that he was a “slave for life.” Growing up there were many times I looked in the mirror and didn’t like the person I saw. I many times felt like a mistake, that I was worthless. I relate to Douglass’s sense of finally seeing his own identity and what he didn’t like about it.

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In particular, when Douglass learned to read he began reading documents that contained argument against slavery and in doing so, he became conscious of the true horror of slavery. He writes, “I often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead…” (ch. VII). However, he continues, saying “...and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself…”(ch.

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Frederick Douglass Why I Learned To Read And Write Analysis

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Douglass began to view reading as a curse more than a blessing; a way in which he felt more imprisoned by the slave state he was in. Thus, the more he read the more he began to detest enslavers; which nonetheless in his mind would be nothing but thieves whom robbed slave’s homes. For it was not only reading but his ceaseless mind getting the best of him; such reading would create endless thoughts which haunted him and made him wish that he would remain an ignorant slave. Nonetheless, during Douglass’s thoughts, Douglass began to learn to

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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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