Frederick Douglass Thesis

In the book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass, he tells us through his narrative his self-transformation from being an object to a free human. Through the process of becoming a free man, he describes his experiences and of other slaves to shed a light on slavery during the nineteenth century. I will give a background history of Frederick Douglass, the content of that period, some hardships and themes like, ignorance and knowledge that are mentioned in the narrative that connect to the period. Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County, Maryland around 1818. His mother, Harriet Bailey would take twelve mile walks at night to see Frederick Douglass. They didn’t spend much time together and barely discussed. His mother died when we was about seven years old and even then he didn’t get to see her at her burial. He doesn’t know his father’s identity, he know that he was a white man but also think that he could have been his owner. (The Norton Anthology of World Literature)

In 1826, Frederick Douglass was sent to

The slaveholders use ignorance as a tool to shape the slaves. For example, when Mr. Auld found out that his wife was teaching Douglass how to read and write, he said “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should now nothing but to obey his master – to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now, if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave” (The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 250). This quote proves that Mr. Auld wanted ignorance to play a part in developing a slave. Mr. Auld believed that a slave shouldn’t be taught how to read and write, instead they should just obey orders. In the United States, slaveholders would fear that if a slave knew how to read and write they would be smart enough to leave and be