Sarah's Book Blog: The Awakening

The Narrative of Frederick Douglass has countless strengths towards achieving its purpose of educating American citizens on the reality of slavery. Douglass described the physical and mental pain he and his fellow slaves suffered with honest and specific details of how they were brutalized during the first four chapters.

Chapters five to eight focused on the ignorance and lack of education of slaves. Everyone is probably aware of the fact that

depravity: moral corruption; wickedness

slaves were treated violently, but the words of Douglass' master (when the mistress taught Douglass how to read) are what really allowed me and Douglass himself to understand the true depravity of slavery: "If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave." (Page 45) Education was the only hope that could allow the slaves to organize themselves and overcome their burden. Not teaching slaves how to read was a way to remove any piece of humanity stifling desire to be free. Douglass amazingly describes his experiences of how his master crushed his hope for freedom. Ironically, the master's words motivated Douglass even more to teach himself how to read as he says, "From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted and I got it at a time when I the least expected it." (Page 45)

However, the discovery of The Columbian Orator, a collection of political essays and dialogues that celebrates Republican virtues (abolitionism), and the gain of knowledge create a deeper wound for Douglass. The more he finds about slavery, the more he realizes he was happier when he was ignorant and unaware of the reality behind him. He describes these feelings with powerful rhetoric, that it became devastating for me to read: "I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed." (Page 52) Nevertheless, the information he obtained from The Columbian Orator also made him think about abolitionism and become more determined than ever to run away. As Douglass confessed: "the light broke in upon me (him) by degrees... I was determined to be off," I understood that he wrote this narrative to show how important having an education is. I could clearly see the difference between Douglass' perspective when he didn't know how to read and his perspective after reading The Columbian Orator.