Accessing Freedom through Literacy
This essay will show how, through his quest for literacy, Frederick Douglass tries to gain access to freedom, a freedom that he has been denied by the authority of slavery. His Narrative challenges the precepts of slavery by showing how literacy allows slaves to become the intellectual equals of the slave owners. It also shows how, through literacy, slaves can gain a sense of self-reliance and independence, which goes against the very core of slavery.
One of the building blocks of slavery is the belief that African American slaves are primitives, being given no chance to develop their intellectual abilities. Slavery enforces the idea that slaves are lesser than men, and in the case of Frederick Douglass’s