Part 1: After the young Douglass loses his mistress as his teacher, what strategies does he practice to continue learning to read? Who does he turn to for help? How does he persuade them to help him?
After losing his mistress as a teacher, he resorted to young white children with whom he became friends with, and some of them became his instructors. As stated in paragraph 4 lines 37-38, “…making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. ” This demonstrates that Frederick Douglas made advantage of whatever materials he had available to him in order to read. To learn how to read without getting in trouble, he would do his errands fast and then go to them so that they could teach him how to read, and in exchange for the white children to teach Frederick Douglass how to read, he would give them bread.
Part 2: “The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition.” (paragraph 7, lines 91-94).
This quote from the text stuck out to me the most while reading because of how Douglass describes how impactful and life changing it was for him when he learned how to read. Douglass also realizes that even though learning is a privilege, it exposed him to the reality of slavery. This can be seen within this part of the quote, “… heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. it was ever present to torment me …”. Within his learning spectrum and capability of now connecting words and phrases through his new knowledge of reading, Douglass is now able to understand the darkest moments and facts behind slavery and is astonished by it. He describes it being a painful part of him learning that slavery is a suppression of freedom.
I agree with you on how douglass describes how impactful and life changing it was when he learned how to read and write. And the efforts he did to learn such as making friends just to learn.
Good job!
Liked this: Douglass is now able to understand the darkest moments and facts behind slavery and is astonished by it.
Is he not more than astonished — what would be a better word?