Learning to Read and Write Lit. Response

“Education and slavery were incompatible with each other” is a quote from the excerpt, Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born a slave in 1818. Back in those times, a slave being able to read and write was like a crime. For Frederick Douglass to be able to do both tells you a lot about his character before you even read the passage. It tells you that he’s a very ambitious and strong-minded man. He found ways to accomplish his goal to learn how to read and write. In his writing, he appeals to the three parts of the rhetorical triangle: ethos, logos, and pathos.

Douglass appeals to ethos in this passage. His character can be determined through the title of this excerpt and even the first sentence of the story. “I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years.” This implies that he is like every other slave though he still managed to go beyond and find a way to learn. This sets the tone of the story. His reason for writing was to show how he had goals but went beyond what any other slave had done to try to accomplish them. He tells about his experience and journey of coming to literacy. Also, this grabs the attention of his audience and makes him as an author credible and trustworthy.

The reason for writing this story is was to show the audience the steps he took on learning to read and write thus appealing to logos. He gives examples on what he had been through to get to where he’s at. “The plan which I adopted…was making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of them as I could, I converted them into teachers” This is an example of a step he too to reach his goal. He makes it clear to his audience that this is what really happens to him and what he had to do.

I feel this passage mainly appeals to pathos. Because this is a true story, it grabs the audience’s attention. At one point in the story, he tells about himself finally learning to read. You would think this would be a big accomplishment for him and he would be proud of himself. Douglass says that he found himself regretting his own existence and was wishing himself dead. This is the turning point of the story. The audience would not suspect him feeling this way at all. By Douglass learning how to read, he has found out so much information about slavery and what the whites have done to his people. He is appalled by some of the information he has found out but soon realizes that he can’t do much about it because if anyone was to find out he could read it could “injure” him. It took many steps for Douglass to be able to read and write. His mistress, who was said to be kind and tender-hearted, was the one person who supported him and even taught him the alphabet. Ironically, there was a change in her character. She stopped teaching him things and even hated to see him with a newspaper.

I feel this was an inspirational story. I feel the message was to inform the audience that anything is possible and to never let anything hold you back. This story was filled with emotion and I really enjoyed reading this passage.