This is illustrated from the literary works of Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and Sherman Alexie. Like these people, literacy isn’t achieved by simply going to school. It’s achieved through great determination and through great persistence. Frederick Douglass, an African-American who was born a slave, was taught how to read and write from the wife of his master. In his narrative, he writes about his mistress.
The Columbian Orator, a collection of political essays, poems, and dialogues, was widely used in American in the first quarter of the nineteenth century to teach reading and speaking. Of all the pieces in The Columbian Orator, Douglass focuses on the master‑slave dialogue and the speech on behalf of Catholic emancipation. “They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience over a slaveholder” (50). These pieces help Douglass to understand why slavery is wrong, both philosophically and politically.
Douglass only knew one thing, how to be a slave. That is, until he was granted teachings from his mistress. “My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door, a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings.” (Douglas, 1955, p. 19) Everything that Douglass has done to get closer to being free, all stems back to this day; where he was shown compassion, kindness, and a willingness to teach. Though, Mr. Auld put a stop to this soon after it began, “if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do.
As Douglass puts it, “nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper”. This evidently shows she abhors Douglass’ determination to learn. As Douglass was running his errands for his mistress, he overcame this challenge by befriending the white kids in the neighborhoodThis way, he is able to have them teach him. One way these two situations are similar is that the authors receive help in achieving the goal to learn. Miss Sullivan helps Keller understand language whereas
Overall, the white slave holders saw slaves as utterly worthless if unsuited for work or unable to obey simple commands. For instance, when Frederick Douglass’s grandma was too old to help out with the children on the plantation, she was forced to live alone as an outcast until she died. (Douglass 2000-2010) However, since slaves had this appearance of being unintelligent, Frederick Douglass was able to easily trick white people in many ways. While learning how to read and write, Douglass would fool kids his age to spell words for him. He would compete with the little boys to see who wrote a word better, and by initiating a competition with these kids, he slowly learned how to write.
When he escaped slavery and learned to read he felt that it gave him hope and freedom. By learning to read he became the leader of the abolitionist movement, known for his oratory and antislavery writings. He challenged himself to set the goal to read, wanting to improve; it wasn’t an easy task and he often felt like giving up. “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free” (Douglass). If he’d done so he may never have been the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States.
The ability to read and write awoke something inside of him that gave him homemade education. Malcolm X was sensitive to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that were afflicting the black face in America. Books was Malcolm X life he said you never catch him without a book. Malcolm X was always studying something so he can help the next black man. Malcolm X spent the rest of his life reading books.
When asked to defend a black man in a controversial trial, he accepts and through this trial works to teach his children the importance of equality, acceptance and fair treatment. Atticus’s teachings are always subtle but throughout the book it can be seen that the majority of Scout’s actions are based on what Atticus has taught her. One such lesson occurs in chapter three. After Scout beats up a poverty-stricken boy named Walter Cunningham for having gotten her in trouble, her brother Jem intervenes and invites Walter to have lunch at their house. This upsets Scout greatly and during lunch she acts very rudely to the boy, an action for which she is scolded by Calpurnia, the children’s African-American nanny.
Irony is embodied largely in the justification of slavery through religion, as well as in the obliviousness of the slaveholders to the same, if not harsher, oppression they motivated after having fought against it in the American Revolution only decades before. Douglass’ diction is important to the readers understanding of the events in the story and the severity surrounding them. It also makes the whole engagement more enticing not only because it elucidates and canonizes emotions in the novel, but also because it helps to create imagery in the readers mind. He is also able to use diction and imagery to construct eloquent passages that are at the same time punctual and yet have deep emotional tolls on the reader. One such example is embodied on page in the text, “Mr.
He hurts his mom after telling her he does not love her and “felt sorry for his mother and she made him lie. He would go to Kansas City and get a job and she would feel all right about it” (Hemingway 77). Krebs means it when he says he does not and cannot love anybody which hurts his mother deeply. Because he has lost or weakened his values he hides how he truly feels and lies and takes it back. He decides that he will run away to Kansas only to escape the problems he cannot confront in his family.