Reading Response RLW and FDouglass – Jemel

Part A:

Mike Bunn really wrote an interesting piece, although I don’t yet understand what he means by reading word by word, it definitely tells the readers how to become better from his experiences. When Bunn said, “Sometimes I got distracted and had to re-read entire paragraphs”, I felt like I related to this. To me, this is just the way that some readers like us, try and look for an understanding of the text, we may have to read the text over and over again because our mind wasn’t focused on the target. The target of course is the meaning and reason of the writing. Overall, he took a different approach then what I usually take, and decided to look for why the author wrote the way they wrote, and how to take those strategies for his own writing. I don’t enjoy writing a whole bunch so I never usually think about understanding why some authors write the way they do, which is most likely why I never went the same route as Bunn.

Part B:

“My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicityof her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed onehuman being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seemto perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for her to treat me as ahuman being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it didto me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrowor suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, andcomfort for every mourner that came within her reach.”

This Quote from Fedrick Douglas’s writing details a lot about the Mistress in the beginning stages of their relationship with Douglas. She was depicted as such a sweet and loving angel. He even describes how she felt when seeing him, she never saw him as such a tool or accessory to just use. The quote speaks about a slave holder that feels for such people that has been stripped of their freedom. Over some time, she started to change into what slaveholders are truly like, but at least in the beginning, she was hurt by seeing people suffer.