In Chapter 6, Douglass' master states the following:
"Learning will spoil the best nigger in the world... If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him... It would make him discontented and unhappy."
What does this quote mean, and why is it true? Give a specific example of Douglass' quest to become literate, and how that changed his view of the world (and his own life in slavery).
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6 comments:
I believe this quote means that if a "nigger" becomes literate he or she will have no significance to their place of life. I know this because Frederick Douglass learned how to read and it was then when he understood the pathway of freedom. He also understood the difficullty of the white man's power to enslave the black man.
This quote means to me that if you teach a "nigger" how to read that he/she will eventually will not be needed any more to work for the white man anymore. If you give anyone the opportunity to read there is nothing that they can't do if the set their minds to it. Look what it did for Frederick Douglass, it opened so many doors that he never knew existed.
I think that the quote means if a "nigger" learns how to acquire these abilities, then he or she will no longer work as a slave. And he's saying that if they learn how to read or write, then they will understand the world more and relate to what their master is saying. It's true because if they understand the world more, they will use their abilities and be smart and try become free. Also, Douglass understood that the white man, as a slaveholder, has difficulities with handling them all.
I think the quote means is a "nigger" finds out how to read it could bring them bigger and better things and life, and when they say it would make them unhappy that means is that they won't want to do the field work, because they realized that with there abilities they can do more useful things in there life instead of working for there master.Also when Fredrick Douglas learned how to read he realized that he didn't have to stay under his master as worker and he could some how find a way to reach freedom.
Irish author William Butler Yeats once said, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Douglass recognized that education, especially literacy, was going to be his path to freedom. High school is just a stepping stone. Your education is just beginning!
I think he meant if an African American know how to read an write he would know to much. In back then the white didn't want a black person to have no kind of education they could make them understand better. I just think the white man or his master was afraid of the outcome.
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