Learning To Read And Write

“Learning to Read and Write” from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a very encouraging story that would make anyone eliminate excuses from their daily lives. Frederick Douglass in this passage shows how he has grown from a brain dead slave into a man of high intellect. Through his words, you can see that he has grown through the way he speaks and through the change of his thinking (his mindset). He proves that knowledge has power over everything and that education has no limitations. He also proves that education will prevents anyone from becoming someone’s slave.

Whenever he wants shows growth and development of his reading and write, he uses “large” vocabulary words. For example, he says, “What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights” (pg 102). The word vindication is just a colorful word for proof as denunciation is for condemned. For that matter, slaves did not have much to learn from as far expanding their vocabulary because they weren’t allowed to learn. Therefore, these words should not be common for anyone like him who is just learning how to read or who don’t know how to. By using these words, he seems as though he is trying to show off his improvements to his audience. It also gives the audience a feeling of pride and accomplishment.

Douglass, throughout his narrative, he displays many emotions through his learning experience. Through pathos, he captures the audiences’ feelings for two people, his mistress and himself. When he first talks about the mistress, you can easily tell how he feels about her you will have that same feeling resonates in your heart. He vividly describes her as a caring and loving woman that he seems to appreciate because she taught him the fundamentals of the English, which led to him learning to read. He makes you fall in love with her as he has however, with every event that has occurred between them two; he releases every emotion that affects the audience. When he felt abandoned, by him you can feel how much it hurt him and it seemed to bring down his esteem. This also seemed to be linked to his esteem when he mentioned that at one point of his life he wanted to commit suicide. The sense of feeling low and worth little to nothing makes you feel sorry for him.

This excerpt will always be greatly appreciated because through his hard life he still maintain his pride for who he is.