Theme Of Education In Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

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Education was one of the main themes in Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass. He felt it was very important to learn how to read, write and have a solid educational background. In addition, Frederick Douglass shared his personal story about slavery and the way a man could rise above it and make something of himself. Douglass showed readers how he made himself free; and freedom is not something that is given, but something that one can find for themselves. Throughout the narrative, Douglass described the cruelty of slavery and the horrible living conditions slaves had to endure. He highlighted how he learned the importance of educating himself and his claim of being a man, a human being with rights, no matter what the issue was. Douglass defined freedom as more than escape from slaveholders. There are many ways a person can be enslaved as well as all the ways people can be free. Despite the many ways to prevent little or no education, for slaves in the south, education was a major role in the abolition of slavery and someone like Frederick Douglass used the education that he taught himself, to teach others and come out from a slave to a free man.
In chapter one of the narrative, Douglass explains that his master separated him from his mother soon after his birth. This separation ensured that Douglass did not develop familial feelings towards his mother. Douglass devotes large parts of his narrative to demonstrating how a slave is “made” beginning at birth. He gave details how slaveholders first remove a child from his immediate family, and how that destroys a child’s support network and sense of personal history.
Douglass never knew a lot about himself, including how old he was. The white children were able to tell their a...

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...he evils of slavery.
Freedom to Frederick Douglass means a place where you are not scared of being taken into bondage. He didn’t believe anywhere in the United States is free because there is always the chance that a black man can be taken back into slavery because of the Fugitive Slave Laws. He believed that if a slave had the power to read or write, they had the power to free themselves. Frederick Douglass became the leading black abolitionist and one the most famous speakers of his time. His words about his treatment as a slave were a powerful weapon against slavery. People were starting to question whether he was a slave or not, which motivated him to publish his first autobiography. His narrative was one of the most effective accounts written by a fugitive slave, and it became a major source of information about slavery and a classic of American literature.

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