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Words And Words By Frederick Douglas: The Power Of Words

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Fortunately, words span the known world. After all, without words, expressing ourselves would become much harder. Not surprisingly, words are powerful, and when words are put together, they can have exquisite meanings. After reading, “Learning to Read and Write”, by Frederick Douglas, I was astounded by his use of words (not to mention how he learned to use them). The grouping of the words was wonderful and powerful. However, the three word groupings that I loved best of all were, “This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge”, “I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing”, and, “Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities”. …show more content…

Douglass showed. The anguish revealed by Mr. Douglass is stunning. With reading comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes the truth, and the truth can be hard to bear. Knowing the truth about something reveals the good and the bad about things, and sometimes the bad outweighs the good (as with slavery). This leads up to another quote I noticed on the same subject, " Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!" This quote shows how passionate Mr. Douglass was about the anguish he now felt because of his knowledge. Finally, the last quote shows how much power can affect people. With the added power Mr. Douglass's Mistress has over her slaves, she became corrupt and evil, but before she was a slaveholder, she was a kind and tender-hearted woman. Unfortunately, this lesson is true on all fields. The more power a person has, the harder it is for that person to stay true to himself/herself and his/her friends. Having power over someone affects the person in control as much as the powerless person, as Mr. Douglass showed when he said that "Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to

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