Part 1
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?
Learning to read, I believe, was both a blessing and a curse for Douglass because he was able to gather knowledge and become wiser, but it also had an effect on him since it let him recognize the type of situation and position he was in. The fact that he could read did not affect the reality that he was doomed to remain a slave for the rest of his life. As Douglass gathered more knowledge, he realized that freedom for not only himself, but for all slaves, was a false dream and a goal that none of them would ever achieve. Douglass felt the cruelty and anger of what it meant to be able to read and learn when he realized his fate had been handed down to him by his enslavers with no way of escaping it. Douglass was forced to acknowledge that his masters were true when they said that learning to read would only lead to disappointment. In Douglas’s situation, his increasing knowledge made him despised his life as a slave, and the chains of enslavement that bound him to a life he didn’t want to live made him feel overwhelmed.
Part 2
“The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a
strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had”(Paragraph 5)
Learning to read showed Douglas the terrible reality of slavery and changed his view of literacy-based opportunities. He realizes that learning to read will not help him fight for his freedom, but will instead force him into further slavery. He was frustrated with the many steps he had to take to learn to read and write. Therefore, he suffered because learning to read revealed to him his terrible condition. Reading made him aware of the problems that existed in the world, but it did not allow him to act.
