Frederick Douglass Journey To Freedom Essay

In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, readers watch a slave boy grow up and discover his identity and importance in the world. In the book, he learns to read, a luxury that not all slaves had. However, with reading came challenges. Douglass was learning and reading against his owner's wishes because slaves of this time were often discouraged or even banned in their efforts to learn. This is because of the ever prevalent fear that if they became too intelligent they would rebel. Learning for Douglass was a bumpy road as he dealt with depression and even thoughts of suicide. But in the end, Douglass was freed both figuratively and literally through his ability to read. Literacy was what Douglass ultimately credits for his success in escaping however it was a long and hard journey in becoming literate. Slave owners often held slaves from learning for multiple reasons. With education comes intelligence, something that owners are very anxious about slaves possessing. Douglass told readers why owners tended to not allow slaves to be literate in saying, I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his
It was not an easy path to success and freedom, but thanks to Douglass' autobiography, we can now know just how much slaves struggled in their efforts to be free. Learning against his owners will certainly posed it's challenges. It was also difficult for Douglass to hear about a world through literature that he could not yet experience. However, by the time Douglass was in his mid-twenties he was freed in more ways than one. He could now know just how great mental and physical freedom are, something that not all slaves got to know. Slavery slowed literacy in nineteenth century America and that should never happen