The power of education sets us free from the rest of the world. Education is the most empowering force to have, it builds confidence and breaks down barriers. Frederick Douglass’s “Learning to Read and Write” and “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave” is a common goals of breaking free from a system that was created by someone else. They achieve this by gaining the power of knowledge and understanding self-awareness. Douglass underlines the importance of education as the route to achieving freedom. Douglass is trapped by the system that was created by the majority who saw his skin color as a threat. Plato showcases the symbol of the cave in which the prisoner was trapped from knowledge of the outside world. They share the same idea of moving from ignorance …show more content…
In “The Allegory of the Cave”, the prisoner was ignorant of the true nature of their reality and was limited by their perception of the world. In Plato, Socrates illustrated an image of a prisoner chained to the cave wall their whole life, facing only a blank wall. Behind them was a fire burning that was casting a shadow. They believe this casted shadow was their only reality. However, one of the prisoners made a bold attempt to free himself and escape outside the cave. He would realize that the shadow was just an illusion and that the real world was more complex. Similarly, in “Learning to Read and Write,” Douglass described his experience as a slave who was denied education and showed how he managed to teach himself how to read in a broken system. He described that he felt enlightenment from the knowledge he found. He realized through self-knowledge he was a prisoner of slavery and that he wanted to be free from it. He was a prisoner like the one in Plato’s cave, unaware of the world beyond his own limited experience. He only realized that after learning to read and write that the world was much larger and more complex than he ever …show more content…
In “The Allegory of the Cave”, the prisoners are chained up to the wall by a “puppeteer” who manipulated the prisoners through the misinformation that was fed to them throughout their lives. This puppeteer represents those who are in power and in control of the narrative. The prisoners’ ignorance is perpetuated by the puppeteer who created this shadow as a wall inability for them not to see beyond. Socrates argues to Glaucon that prisoners’ lack of understanding of true reality is a form of oppression. Similarly, in “Learning to Read and Write,” Douglass describes his ignorance and oppression he experiences as a slave who was denied his basic right to be educated. He believed his ignorance was deliberately perpetuated by his own slave owner who fear that educated slaves would be more likely to rebel against their master. Douglass was initially unaware of their own injustice of his situation and had no means of accessing information beyond the limited scope of his own experience. It was through his education when realized the full extent of his
In Frederick Douglass’ passage written in to take place in New York in 1838, he uses emotion, and literary devices to convey his state of mind. He starts with persuading the reader to imagine the complexity of being a victim to slavery and escaping. With a cheerful emersion from the deeps of slavery to the openness of freedom. “I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions”. “I felt as one may imagen an unarmed mariner”.
The free express their joy outwardly, but it is a mask that covers the co-existing ugliness of slavery that Douglass describes here. Although he is able to name this co-existence of the joy and pain, painting pictures of beauty and ugliness, it is crucial to understand that Douglass is still able to picture the Beauty he craves, much like how Plato views the Beauty of the flawed human
When Douglass was given a simple education by Mrs. Auld, Douglass “prized it highly” and believed that he “understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass 20). By receiving the gift of education Douglass was ecstatic and this probably
Douglass became aware of the full extent of slavery and the system allowing him to escape. The quote "I have often wished for a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! it was the everlasting thinking of condition that tormented me,"(Douglass 68) shows the mental tool slavery takes on the enslaved, and the self-awareness and knowledge of the enslavement.
“The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato is about a group of prisoners that were chained up in a cave with their backs facing the exit of the cave, unable to see what was going on in the outside world. They occasionally would see shadows on the wall and would
Doreen Piano uses a number of quotes to demonstrate how education allowed Douglass to comprehend the evils of slavery and take control over his own life. For instance, Douglass once remarked, "The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers" (Douglass 49). This quote reflects how education allowed Douglass to see through the lies and deception that upheld the institution of slavery and to gain a greater understanding of the reality of his situation. However, Douglass's desire for knowledge was not without its dangers. As Douglass notes what Mr. Aulds said, "If you teach that n***** (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him.
Douglass remains uneducated about the abolition of slavery, of course knowing not everyone was in support of it, just unknowing of the extent at which people were trying to end it. In fact, until later in his life, Douglass would “hear something about the abolitionists,” yet, “it was some time before I found what the word meant” (55). The slaves were so sheltered from education and the outside world that they did not even understand what an abolitionist was. After learning about the whole world of abolitionists out there, Douglass wanted to become part of the movement and leave his mark on the world, which would not have been possible if he didn’t learn to read and write. The new concept of an abolitionist and the fact there were others who wanted the same change as he did intrigued him.
Slaves obtaining knowledge or an education were then viewed as unmanageable. One can see that through Frederick Douglass’s gain of education; Slavery began to look more than an imprisonment and his mind would not cease to think. With this depressing state of mind, Douglass would begin to plot for ways to obtain his education. Despite living in a country were teaching slaves was unpardonable, Frederick Douglass began to incorporate various ways for his education. He would hide in a separate room and would be suspected by his mistress that he could be reading a book.
The allegory of the cave contains a very poignant message about learning and new experiences but it’s not real. It’s written as Socrates telling a story in order to illustrate his point. The first man is forcibly removed from the cave and shown the light, creating a painful experience. Douglass’ story is autobiographical and it shows a true need for knowledge in order to be free from the bondage of slavery.
His knowledge made him realize that the enslaves were like robber who went to Africa and stole them from their own home. Douglass was unhappy and started to think of ways to change it ,and he then started to analyze the need of gaining their freedom from slaveholders, and the urge to runaway . “[I] got one of our city papers, containing an account of the number of petition from the north, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia…” (Par. 9) When Douglass read the city papers, he then understood the true meaning of the words abolition and abolitionist. This means that literacy was a huge impact with Douglass of the true idea of slavery and how slaveholders were taking advantage of them .
Slaves often do not understand their condition fully, since they do not know life beyond slavery. His unawareness of the liberating power of education bound him in a misleading bliss, causing him to believe that his state of being had permanency and to remain unaware of his injustice. However, once education had revealed to Douglass his ignorance, he says, “. . . I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy.”
Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.
When the enlightened prisoner returns to the cave “they all laugh at him and say he had spoiled his eyesight by going up there”(Plato __). Plato infers that society will purposely be blind to conform to society’s norms. When the escaped prisoner returns to the cave he “gets his eyes full of darkness” (Plato ___). The freed prisoner explains what the actual objects were that they were seeing were. Plato demonstrates that the ignorance and blindness to the truth is by choice.
Although Frederick Douglass was not expected to be literate, he taught himself how because he believed that education should be for everyone, not just a few privileged children. Frederick Douglass was a slave for life in the southern United States before the Civil War. He had no regular teacher because, at that time, most slave owners did not believe that their slaves should be taught to read and write. White slave owners thought that if slaves knew how to read, they would go against their owners and fight against slavery.
The story is about a group of prisoners that are confined in a dark cave. Since they are in this cave and know nothing other than the cave, their reality is limited to the shadows that are projected onto the walls of the cave. This signifies the ignorance that keeps individuals seeing a distorted version of the truth. Within the allegory, one prisoner is set free and is exposed to all the truths that is the real world. The prisoner who was set free undergoes a transformative journey in which they have the choice of whether or not to remain in the comfort of what he knows, which is staying in the cave, or to keep moving forward and venture into the outside world.