In the narrative essay “A homemade education” by Malcolm X, X was traveling down a difficult path in his life. When he was younger he “Became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what he wanted to convey in his letters” (437). Mr. Elijah Muhammad was an inspiration to X for helping him to educate himself and be able to convey what he wanted to say when he spoke and through his writings. X described himself as an articulate hustler with little education who commanded attention. Later in his life when he was in prison, X began to improve his reading and writing skills to match those of the man he looked up to and his inspiration, Elijah Muhammad. He would read and write each word from the dictionary until he fully understood each …show more content…
word. By these actions, it proves was a self-driven man who ended up succeeding in becoming educated to prove he was not an illiterate hustler any longer.
He worked so hard to achieve his goals he states the “no university would ask any student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand” (439). In my experience of self-driven education, I found the determination in a similar way with someone to look up to for inspiration. Toward the end of high school, I had surrounded myself with the wrong group of people who in turn led me to do some illegal things. I was following a rebelling path; not headed in the right direction. One day, when I was living in Alaska, I was thinking about prior discussions my step dad and I had had about two paths people choose to follow. Those conversations got me thinking on which path I was on; I realized the path I was on would lead me to a place I did not want to go. I decided to make a change and separate myself from the negative influences and hop on the path that would lead me to success. Both Malcolm X and I were in a place in life were we needed change and through change, we became better people headed for …show more content…
success. Malcolm X and Plato were born in different times but they had some of the same ideas about life and was to be successful.
Both talk about how through change and self-determination, one can achieve great things; not only for themselves but for the people around them. Malcolm X was a self-driven man who wanted to empower black people, like Elijah Muhammad, but he knew he needed to be educated to speak to the people properly. Plato talked about a prisoner who if set free from his restraints and introduced to enlightenment would take every step possible to pursue it. As for me, a long time went by before I knew what I wanted to do for a career, but once I figured out that I wanted to own my own businesses and be an entrepreneur. I pursued every way to educate myself and having the self-driven mind set to achieve my goals, I know I will achieve them just like Malcolm X and Plato Had done.
In the essay “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, the prisoners who are chained to the wall have no frame of reference to what the outside world is like because in their cave there is no light except for the small flicker of light from a fire behind the wall they are chained to. They only see their own shadows and believe the fire is their “sun”. Plato says
that if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was and illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision.(614) This excerpt is a great example of how the journey to enlightenment is not without its pains, but pushing though these pains and continuing your journey you will find something beautiful and fulfilling. Plato is also conveying the message that what you believe may not be what is true but merely an illusion of happiness. One quote that best describes this is “he would rather suffer anything than entertain those false notions” (615). One of the ways that I can relate to this essay from Plato is my transition of different schools from public school to private school. I was comfortable in public school and I knew a lot of people and had friends, but in a new private school I would have to start from scratch not knowing anyone or having any friends. This new environment was scary at first and I did not enjoy it; this is when I could have turned to my parents and persuaded them to go back to public school. Instead I decided to “face the light” again and push through the “pains” of a new place and once I did that I found new friends and enjoyed the new school. This new place was much better than public school in the ways of education which was enlightening for me.
How his time spent in prison made him strive for more knowledge. Also, how he taught himself how to be more articulate. Malcolm X had an agenda of why he wanted to convey himself in more literary manner. Malcolm x talks about his use of language, he uses words
The reading on Malcolm X had lots of points that hit everyday society in America for African Americans. Malcolm X was like any other man hustling on the streets to get by, like a lot you see in today society with the drug dealers and such. Starting off Malcolm X was not an intelligent man; he didn’t know how to write without a little slang to his words, he didn’t know how to articulate what he wanted to be said. Malcolm X was convicted of robbery and was sent to Charleston Prison, but was later sent off to the Norfolk Prison Colony School, this is where he gave himself the educated needed to be a well productive citizen. Malcolm X stated, “I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary-to study, to learn some new words (p.211). “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages.” “Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.” Here Malcolm X is seeing his time being served in prisons to not only be a lessoned learned but to learn something that he knew he would never learn...
In conclusion, I would like to say that this book is worthwhile reading although it is a quite thick and might take longer time to finish reading it. I might not good in reviewing a book or giving criticism for something. Reading this autobiography can benefit people in many fields. Different people will see things differently. So does when reading this book, certain people might take the lessons differently and it might benefit differently. For example, as a sociological study, it could provide fascinating insights into ghetto life and the ways which an individual learned to survive in the ghetto. Meanwhile as a religious work, it does tell about how an individual is struggling in order to find his God. And it cannot be denied as it is clear that in political work is the book has had its strongest impact.
He wanted to be able to properly write his thoughts and opinions out to be understood. He wanted to leave an impression on people to give them a thought of him exceeding his education far beyond the eighth grade. That impression was credited to his “prison studies” (Malcolm X 1). He had a voice that needed to be heard all over to bring a change to society. He self educated himself day and night with the dictionary, teachings ,and books. Malcolm X considered that “three or four hours of sleep a night” was enough (Malcolm X 3). Malcolm X became interested in the “glorious history of the black man” (Malcolm X 3). “Book after book” showed him the “white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown,red,and yellow peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation” (Malcolm X 4). Like Douglass, Malcolm found the “Faustian machinations” of the “white man” against the “non-white victims” (Malcolm X). Douglass states, “I feared they might be treacherous.” Unlike Douglass being social and receiving help from others around , Malcolm was to himself and seeked information on his own through books. Malcolm X had more pride in his education and wasn 't afraid to share his knowledge, “Mr. Muhammed, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to me through my efforts to document his teachings in books” (Malcolm X 6). Malcolm X had some basic education knowledge
As Malcolm X began to write more letters to a wide variety of people he became frustrated with the fact that he could not communicate with them as he wanted to. "It was because of these letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of homemade education." He hated it because he had been the most articulate hustler on the streets of Harlem, and could get anyone's attention with his words. He was admired for the eloquent words he spoke and was not used to being ignored. For now even the simplest English was hard for him to write.
In his early life, the author depicts an illiterate who knows slangs but who is not “functional” (para. 2) of writing. X takes advantage a series of commas that connects numerous clauses to exhaust reader and implicitly to empathize his hardship of articulating ideas. He “stumbled upon” (para. 1) his jealousy of an educated inmate and starts to read books that look as though are in “Chinese” (para. 3). By repeating words such as “aloud,” “read,” “myself” (para. 8), the author implies behind these tedious tasks, more importantly, is his persistence. Many Malcolm X’s diction is denoting. His passion for knowledge comes from the new words he has learned, of which he feels “immensely proud” (para. 9). He is wholehearted to “devour” (para. 15) new concepts, to accumulate “a million words” (para. 10) vocabulary, and to be like the prison “celebrities” (para. 14) he admires, who are very knowledgeable. While his diction is already in simple English, he expects his tone to be more friendly. After a dozen of paragraphs, he begins to shift his diction in second-person point of view. He states figuratively that even with a “wedge,” “you” (para. 11) cannot separate himself with books. Additionally, colloquial sentences evoke a sense that they are on a common ground, where a trusted friend is sharing his experience. This adds on his automatic ethos as a public educated and articulate
This paper will discuss the different stages of thought processes the former Nation of Islam minister, Malcolm X went through during his lifetime in terms of how he viewed white people, but more specifically “the white man” in America. The reason the focus is on White Americans is because these were the people outside of the Nation of Islam that shaped his life good or bad and put him on the path where he eventually transformed from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X who was one of the most polarizing and controversial figures during his lifetime and even nearly 50 years after his death the name Malcolm X causes certain people to shudder. Malcolm X became a well-known figure during the 50’s and 60’s during the civil rights movement which involved figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. This was a pivotal era in American history because for the first time that there was major push towards full rights for African Americans. When Malcolm X came on the scene he put fear into White people because they weren’t used to hearing the truth about race relations in America and many of them felt that things were just fine because they themselves were living life high on the hog while at the same time exploiting Blacks. Because this type of talk from a black person was new to them they misinterpreted his views as “hate speech” and accused him of trying to incite violence when he was simply trying wake his people up to properly deal with what was happening to them.
The title of the article “Homemade Education” itself is significant; Malcolm X came to learn more by teaching himself rather than relying on others to educate him. According to Malcolm Homemade Education means self-education. One of the biggest reasons why he chose to become
In Learning to Read, by Malcolm X, he talks about his studies while in prison. Having only up to an eighth grade education, Malcolm X struggles with reading and writing. The main reason he decided to learn how to read was because of the letters he received while in prison, primarily from Elijah Muhammad. (X 354). He wasn’t able to write responses to them like he wanted to without using slang. Along with not being able to write letters, Malcolm X couldn’t read books without skipping over most of the words, thus motivating him to study an entire dictionary. With the use of said dictionary, he also improved his penmanship by writing down every word, definition, and punctuation he saw. (X 355). Once he memorized the whole dictionary, he was then able to read books. There wasn’t a moment where Malcolm wasn’t reading even at night when the lights were out, he still managed to use the little bit of light shining into his cell to read.
They are facing the wall, they are unable to move or see anything besides the shadows of their own bodies, puppets and objects, which are intentionally substituted by other people. The shadows appear on the wall from the fire that burns behind them. Prisoners can also hear the sound of an echo that reflects from the wall. The only reality that they know and are aware of, are the shadows that they see and the echo that they hear. Everything changes when one of them have a chance to leave the cave and finds out what the truth is and how the world looks like. The process of finding out the truth is not easy, it is quite painful and overwhelming. It takes time for a prisoner to adjust and comprehend the new information, considering the fact that knowledge that he had was far from the truth. What is even more challenging, is the posture of the prisoner after discovering the reality, who has to go back where he came from. He does not agree to live in denial for the rest of his life with other prisoners who believe in the shadows. Since he discovered what the truth is, he does not want to be fed up with lies anymore. (Plato
He first began his journey by learning a lot from Elijah Muhammad, who was the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI). The nation of Islam supported Black Nationalism and racial separation, and they disapproved Americans of European descent. The NOI members were only black Muslims. Elijah Muhammad’s teachings intrigued Malcolm who educated himself more about the NOI and took the last name of X which symbolized his forgotten African identity. Malcolm promoted self-defense and the liberation of African Americans. This is one of the main reasons why more and more African Americans admired Malcolm X because it made them feel like they do have a stand in their life and they can take charge in their beliefs. Within time he developed a better outspoken philosophy than Elijah Muhammad whom he felt didn’t support the civil rights movement. Eventually Elijah Muhammad realized that Malcolm X became too much powerful that he suspended him from the NOI. This is when troubles began to arise slowly for Malcolm X.
Having the knowledge to read and write may take someone into a completely different universe, it allows to see reality or escape from reality. It gives a better understanding of what goes on in the world, that being good or bad depending on how he wants to see it. Malcolm X wrote a short story " A Homemade Education," about how, his experience in prison allowed him to gain knowledge and to grow as an individual. Learning to read and write showed him, how to be mentally alive in a way that changed his life forever. He took it as an ability to grow, to make a change for himself and possibly make a difference in the world. Malcolm X explained how it 's never too late to get an education, there is always time for one to change in life. It is
In this excerpt from Malcolm X's autobiography, he describes to the reader how he gained his education: by teaching himself to read and doing so liberally.
To begin, Plato’s Allegory of the cave is a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon and its main purpose, as Plato states is to, “show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.”(Plato) The dialogue includes a group of prisoners who are captive in a cave and chained down, only with the ability to stare straight at a wall. This wall, with the help of a fire, walkway, and people carrying different artifacts and making sounds, create a shadow and false perception of what is real. This concept here is one of the fundamental issues that Plato brings up in the reading. “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” (Plato). These prisoners, being stuck in this cave their entire life have no other option but to believe what they see on the wall to be true. If they were to experience a real representation of the outside world they would find it implausible and hard to understand. “When any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up a...
Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read,” is a powerful piece about his time in prison when he taught himself how to read. Through his reading, he discovered the awful things that happened in history and became a civil rights activist. Malcolm X changed his feeling and position throughout his piece, “Learning to Read.” His emotions are clear in his writing, but the change in his writing is clear to be caused by a change in his own thoughts because of the things he learned. The essay shows his lack of reading skills when he was young, but also how interested he became in it, and how much he uses it. He says that reading is important to readers' lives just as it was to his, helping one to form their own thoughts and views. Without the ability to read and understand the world, it becomes difficult to build your own ethical views.