Frederick Douglass Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Frederick Douglass Literary Response
We all know that Frederick Douglass was a famous slave abolitionist. But many people don’t know what he had to go through in his life. Frederick had gone though a lot of issues such as dealing with abuse and going through a phase where he was controlled to think that he didn’t deserve any of the best things in life. Douglass was “brainwashed” by his master to think that he did not deserve to have an education. This is one of the main things that cause Douglass to become one of the greatest slave heroes in history.
As a child, Frederick Douglass was treated as a regular human being, not as an animal. His mistress quickly turned from a kind woman to a cold hearted woman. He was starting to get beat for things that were simple and unimportant. The most frequent thing that he was beat for was being suspected of having a book. Then, the verbal abuse started to kick in. The master and the mistress started to express to him that he was only a slave and he didn’t deserve an education. Douglass had such a zeal for learning that he would sneak and read different books.
After a while Douglass started to think to himself that he did not deserve an education. The text says, “As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing.” His way of thinking got so bad that freedom didn’t sound good to him anymore. He started to wish he was dead; he had thoughts about killing himself, and regretting his own existence. Everything in his life began to be so bland and every aspect of life lost its specific color.
In conclusion, Douglass had to go through a lot of things mentally. He went through all of the abuse and pain and that made him a historian. Education was very important to Frederick Douglass and he wasn’t given one; so he did what he had to do to get one that he yearned so desperately for.