Fredrick Douglas--Gaining My Freedom One Letter at a Time
Fredrick Douglass's Narrative of the Life provides a look into a world so foreign most can't comprehend the horrors of his existence. Douglass writes his memoirs after escaping north from slavery as a tool for abolitionists. His story used to prove the intelligence of slaves to whites, while at the same time it was an inspiration to blacks. He starts at the very beginning, a man/property unaware of even his own birthday. For slaves of the mid 1800s, the path to freedom led through education and while it didn't guarantee it, it was a virtual prerequisite for a slave to have a fighting chance. And for that reason, Masters did virtually everything in their power to keep slaves dumb as draft animals. Douglass's determination to write becomes a larger metaphor for his determination to seek freedom; Douglass's first letters and what he must go through to learn them also represent, the unbelievably of a slave writing at all and Douglas's maturing from dumb as a draft animal to enlightened author as well as his transformation from slave to freeman.In many parts of the country it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write, but for determined slaves basic literacy was the key to freedom and it came only to those, like Douglas,
Douglass was forced to worker harder than any White person to learn to write. He wants the reader to know just how hard it was for him in the hopes of inspiring other slaves and more importantly proving to potential abolitionists slaves were capable of such determination. In this sense Douglass is chipping away furiously at the notion of the stupid slave. The beginning of the path to freedom is his learning to read and write. Interesting how Master Thomas is giving Douglas an unknowing taste of freedom. Douglass speaks of the letters he has been "so fortunate" to learn. Much like he would later spend his free time earning money to escape, "I used to spend the time (left to care for the home) in writing in the spaces left in Master Thomas's copy-book" (2059). Douglass is clearly grateful to these young boys as he is to any white who helps him in the book. Slave owners wanted nothing more than to keep their slaves illiterate, both because it kept them from thinking about freedom but more importantly their being mentally incapable of reading created more justifications for slavery. In reverse order, Douglass is becoming humanized through the book and he must fight at every corner. Douglass has already conquered reading but much in the way he sets his mind at freedom, he sets his mind at learning to write. Douglass's writings are a testament against the greater evil of institutionalized slavery and "scientific racism" used to justify slavery. He takes great pains showing the path from "I would learn to write", to being "so fortunate" to learn four letters, then on to "copying Italics in Webster's", it is extremely similar to moments when he declares he will escape and the very methodical planning for his freedom.
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