MyBondageMyFreedom411

My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass demonstrates a black slave attempting to have an education. His owner sees education for blacks as a bad thing because it would give the slave the capacity to realize the difference between right or wrong, therefore realizing all the bad things the whites have done to the black slaves. Without education the black slaves don’t realize the difference between right or wrong because the whites that make up all the rules and don’t allow them to have choices. The attempt to learn how to read by him self showed his mistress that even though he is enslaved state you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.

Some major themes are education and freedom. These themes tie in all together. Education for blacks was not an option for them in the 1800’s because of slavery. Not many slaves could read or write at this time. The slave owners believed that if slaves didn’t have an education they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between right and wrong, with out education they were prevented from realizing how bad they were treated. Douglass really wanted to have an education so he could read. He set out to accomplish his goal by finding ways of teaching himself. When his mistress realize that he learned how to read she was mad because she was afraid that she would be able to have control over him. Douglass considered freedom in his mind the ability of education and knowing how to distinguish the right and wrong. When he finally was able to read he considered himself to be free because he had an advantage over the other slaves, which was education.