Write 6 pages with APA style on Of Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass.
Write 6 pages with APA style on Of Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass.
The reason for writing this story is to create awareness with the audience of the measures adopted by him to read and write and thus he appeals to the logos. He provides examples as to what brought him to the present level and his travails in the process. He writes, “The plan which I adopted…was making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of them as I could, I converted them into teachers”. Without his being aware of the science behind the procedures adopted by him, he was actually following the ‘study-buddy’ approach to learn the language.
In his determination to accomplish his goal, he gives details about those facts and he chooses the best alternative available to him.This passage also mainly appeals to pathos. This is a true story relating to the suffering, loss of dignity and self-respect, loss of identity, and in short the existence of the slave was difficult for the printed page to capture. He makes liberal use of pathos in various parts of the article. He uses this device to derive the sympathy of his audience and to make them reason about his pleas.
Though the reading applies to all audiences, his emphasis seems to be directed at the sufferers, the African-Americans, as they can connect well with his experiences. Douglas writes “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes. and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the wicked of men.
” This makes it clear that he is trying to educate the audience and the white audience should regret the way they treated the slaves. The emotional world of the audience becomes one with that of Douglass and the suffering slave community. At one stage of the story, he makes mention of his sterling achievement about being able to read finally. He must have felt as if emerging out from a dark cave to a sun-lit area. This was possible only with his newfound ability to read and write.  .That was a big accomplishment for him and he was proud of his endeavors to get at that turning point in his life.
