The first thing I noticed when reading, was how complex Fredrick Douglass’ writing is. Especially knowing he was a former slave. It’s shocking because slave-owners tended to keep their slaves on the “dumb” or uneducated side due to fear of a revolt. However he gives his mistress some credit in learning how to read. She planted the small seed of teaching him the alphabet, and the seed grew large and wide as he taught himself basically to read and write.
While talking about learning how to read Douglass states
“It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.”
This is a very strong metaphor. He was feeling trapped, with no way out. He refers to learning how to read as a “curse and a blessing.”
“In months of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!”
Douglass understood that knowledge is power, unless you can’t voice your issues. Or voice anything in that matter. He’d rather be as ignorant as his “fellow-slaves” because they seem to him, to not know anything is wrong with life. All they know is obeying their master’s wishes and commands. Simply because if you’re not exposed to a different way of living, you wouldn’t know about it. In the case of the slaves, they weren’t exposed to any different way of living and they couldn’t read about it as Douglass did. By reading The Columbian Orator, he stumbled upon some work that relayed the message of “Catholic emancipation” and this gave him the idea of freedom. He realized he was not born to be a slave, for he was indeed a human being. He then started to “abhor and detest” his owners.
His wish to be a beast, to not be able to think, are far beyond my understanding. It also disturbs me for a few different reasons. I can’t and never will be able to understand how slaves felt and what they thought, but I still can’t understand not wanting to have complex thoughts. Not wanting to have needs outside the primal ones such as food, water and sex as animals do. This wish by Douglass helps me in understanding the severe atrocity of slavery.
His way of learning to write is almost as amazing as that of his learning to read. By seeing the four letters on the ships, he memorized them and used them to trick little white boys into teaching him how to write. This cunning deception is one better than I’ve ever seen used in real life. The little boys didn’t even know they were helping him as they were blinded with pride.
