Reading Response FDouglass- Paola

Part 1: Question #3- What does Douglass mean when he says that “learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing” (paragraph 5)?  Furthermore, what does he mean when he says that “freedom…was ever present to torment me” (same paragraph)?  In other words, is there a downside to becoming literate?  What might that be?

Douglass gave the ability to read a lot of importance and worked his own way to achieve it. When he says “learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing” he is expressing how it didn’t go exactly how he thought it would. Through reading Douglass had became self aware of his present situation as a slave and the slaves around him as well. All of this of course made him feel very distraught. By “freedom… was ever present to torment me” Douglass is trying to say that gaining knowledge (ability to read) could’ve been something that he thought would take him further in life, to “freedom” but in reality this “freedom” has made him feel even more enslaved because he now has something new he can’t escape, his mind.

Part 2

Douglass reflects on his newly gained knowledge and how it has made him feel. “It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out” (Paragraph 5). This illustrates a “dead end” feeling that now being literate has left Douglass with. It is something he put a lot of effort into and now it hasn’t taken him anywhere other than a place of hopelessness. He has only learned of how horrible his conditions are, rather than a way to be better as he anticipated. Adding on to the feelings of hopelessness, Douglass adds “and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself.” (Paragraph 6) This expresses to us how death to him is the new meaning of freedom because he is now stuck with his mind. The only way he would escape himself and his thoughts is by death. ignorance is bliss as they say and that isn’t the case for Douglass anymore because he is constantly aware.