Everyone in life is on a journey, and while we might have different experiences, all our journeys contain trials and tribulations. No other situation exemplifies this more than Siddhartha's journey and Frederick Douglass's journey. As Frederick Douglass journey on learning how to read and write and Siddhartha's journey of finding salvation hid a troubling roadblock, their commitment to life is tested. Frederick Douglass and Siddhartha both had encountered a place in their respected journey which makes them want to end their lives. As Douglass learns about the harsh realities of slavery when he learns to read and write and when Siddhartha learns about the awful life of wealth and riches they soon both start to think about suicide. “He felt he had thoroughly tasted and ejected a portion of sorrow, a portion of misery during those past times, that he had consumed them up to a point of despair and death.…show more content… He could have remained much longer with Kamaswami, made and squandered money, fed his body and neglected his soul; he could have dwelt for a long time yet in that soft, well-upholstered hell, if this had not happened, this moment of complete hopelessness and despair, this extreme nausea which he had bent over the flowing water, ready to commit suicide.” “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed.” They relate to each other as both Siddharta and Frederick Douglass encounter a group or a thing that makes them want to leave the world. These direct quotations are shocking as you'd assume that both Siddhartha and Douglass would be happy and satisfied with what they've encountered, you would think that gaining knowledge about slavery and becoming wealthy is a good thing but apparently it
