Douglass uses “abolition” and Malcolm X uses “aardvark”. Douglass on the other hand resents reading, but it is because it has made him realize he will always be confined to slavery.īoth authors use words that stand out to them to emit the emotions they felt. Malcolm X is so happy about overcoming this obstacle, but for him he will be out of prison and he was not exposed to the terrors of anything particular. He learned to read in prison but he says, “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life” (Malcolm X 259) Even though he is confined to prison like Douglass was confined to slavery, he feels freer than ever because he spends all his time learning. Malcolm X has completely different emotions about the challenge of learning to read. Douglass says “Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever” (Douglass 132) At first reading was a challenge he gladly accepted, but now reading made him aware of the truth about slavery. He says “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.” (Douglass 132) Douglass argues about the effect learning to read had on him because he was a slave. In his essay he says “The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder.” (Douglass 131) Although this book was important to him he talks about how it made him see slavery different. This book was about a master and his slave and it conveyed an important message to Douglass. Douglass mentions that every chance he had he would read “The Colombian Orator”. Once Douglass learned to read he began to focus on arguments about slavery. Both essays start off with the author expressing desire to become literate, but they both express different emotions towards this. He had different methods of learning, he would read the dictionary aloud and copy words from it in hopes of bettering his writing. Unlike Douglass, Malcolm X learned everything he knew in prison. He did not have the same troubles that Douglass did, but being black he was still treated as if he was less important than others. When Malcolm X learned to read and write slavery had already been abolished. Since she refused to help Douglass learn, he bribed the white kids on the street by giving them bread in return for lessons. He never explains why his mistress did not want to teach him anymore, but it can be speculated that she was influenced by her husband’s wishes and the fact that they were scared of him gaining to much knowledge and rebelling. ![]() Although his mistress did not actually teach him how to read and write Douglass was extremely adamant about learning. In his essay he reveals that he did learn to read and write in the seven years he lived with his mistress. Although the titles of the essays are similar the authors have contrasting feeling describing their experiences.ĭouglass’s main argument was that slavery and being literate do not mix as well as he thought they could. For both authors becoming literate was such a major achievement that a good part of their autobiographies focused on it. Even when Malcolm X wrote Learning to Read about one hundred years later it showed how memorable this success had been. When Frederick Douglass wrote Learning to Read and Write he was simply describing his process of learning these skills, but at the time it was such a remarkable accomplishment for him. Today when people think of how they learned to read and write it is not as significant a memory as it once was.
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