Besides, Douglass has utilized the ironic tool in the paragraph of his essay. For instance, although he lived as a slave at the time of his learning process, he explains to the readers that he brought bread when doing one part of chores so he could exchange for a reading lesson from local children before his return. He acknowledges: "I felt much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood" (Douglass 26), which is ironic because Douglass himself would probably be in a worse position. Moreover, this kind of irony also presented at the top of the essay, Douglass called himself a slave which reminded the audiences that slaves did not happen in some faraway land; it happened in America – the land of freedom that can also be the land of slavery. Additionally, it is hard to believe for the white American that in the mid-1880s, a black person could even learn to read and less write a book (Shmoop Editorial Team).