In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass puts into words the story of his escape from slavery and his journey of becoming a well-educated and inspiring freeman. Douglass’ voyage to freedom was highly influenced and aided by his self-education. Douglass offers two juxtaposing opinions of education & literacy in slave culture one being that education is the road to freedom from slavery the other being that education is what causes slavery to be so miserable.These conflicting viewpoints offer an interesting insight into the horrors of slavery.
Douglass believes his education is what aided him in breaking free from the chains of slavery. When Douglass was given a simple education by Mrs. Auld, Douglass “prized it highly” and believed that he “understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass 20). By receiving the gift of education Douglass was ecstatic and this probably
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Mr. Auld again argues against providing a slave an education but believes it is not for their health but for their usability as a slave. Auld believes “learning would spoil the best [slave] in the world” and this exemplifies why he believed education had no place in slavery. This want to keep the slaves illiterate, held by most slave keepers of the time, resonates the dehumanizing and cruel nature of slavery. By dehumanizing the slaves the slaveholders are able to keep the slaves in the dark and are able to easily persuade them into harsh labor without any rebellion. What Mr. Auld doesn’t realize by representing education, to Douglass, as a way to ruin a slave he is providing Douglass with the incentive he needed to receive an education and strive towards freedom. So, in a turn in events, something that was told to Douglass to discourage him from seeking an education was the information that convinced him to solicit an