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Life Of Frederick Douglass Literary Analysis

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Today, college students pay thousands of dollars a year with the hopes that after four years, they will somehow gain the essential knowledge to find a job and finally be free of school. This freedom from studying for tests, memorizing math formulas that will never be used again, and writing hundreds of papers is a significant aspect of a student’s journey. An aspect that is normally a positive and thrilling experience. What if, however, this weren’t the case? What if knowledge was an enslaving force that plagued a student? For Frederick Douglass, knowledge was just this. Learning to read and write opened doors of opportunity that demonstrated the state of life Douglass found himself in described in his, Narative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, …show more content…

The mistresses were chief influences in his life. Mrs. Auld, his second mistress, taught Douglass the alphabet and then instructed him on how to read short words. He continues to explain Mr. Auld’s utter disapproval of his wife’s lessons and the negative impacts this new ability would impose in Douglass’s life. Mr. Auld believed, according to his own words found in Douglass’s personal narrative, “a nigger should know nothing but to obey his master” and that, “Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world”(Douglass, 330). As if he were a mother spouting off important truths to her child, Auld warned of serious threats to a slave’s life Douglas. However, Douglass was much like the mother’s defiant son in his disregard of Auld’s warnings. Through the help of boys around his neighborhoods whom he paid using bread, he was able to learn how to read (Douglass, 333). He later learned how to write and begin considering the “thought of my [his] own soul” and expressing these thoughts (Douglass, 334). Douglass’s mistress, Mrs. Auld, gave him, “the inch” that would lead to “the ell” and now there was no turning back. With every bit of knowledge gained and every book read Douglass states, “I [Douglass] was led to abhor and detest my enslavers” (Douglass, 334) and Mr. Auld’s warnings grew more valid by the

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Douglass is again denied of something he sees white people have so again he is deprived mentally. He begins seeking an education for basic things like reading and writing, things most people do automatically without even second guessing doing it. Sophia Auld starts to teach Douglass how to read, but once her husband tells her not to she refrains from it and Douglass frantically teaches himself. “Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass 48). Mr. Auld knows that literacy is what makes a man out of a slave, so he shuts down Douglass’ learning as soon as he finds out about

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