I Whished Myself a Beast
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
The selection "Learning to Read and Write" is part of the autobiographical book "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave" (1841). The author, (who's real name was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey), was born into slavery because his mother's, probably not consent, sexual relation with her slave-master. When he had a chance, he escaped from Maryland to New York getting his freedom, and where he would start fighting for the rights of the slaves. His life is an example of self-improvement and perseverance.
Frederick was, approximately, twelve years old when he had his first reading lesson from his Master's wife, but due to the disapproval of his slaveholder she ended her teaching lessons very soon. He was a very persisting and, definitely, a smart child, who knew what he wanted in his life and he had a plan to achieve it. More mature than most of the kids of his age, he started acquiring an education but, not having anyone to teach him, he had to find the way to access to this development of knowledge. His solution was on the streets. He made a brilliant deal with some poor white kids, he would provide them food and they would teach him how to read, overcoming, like that, his first obstacle in his learning process.
When he learned how to read he began to torment himself...