Fredrick Douglass: The Definition Of Freedom

Defining the meaning of freedom is really difficult. Because you would have to think of many things that you have or achieved in live that give you the feeling of being free. Examples of things or achievements that make humans feel free: owning land, education, being loved, and rich; even slavery can mean freedom to a certain group of people who are dependent on their masters. Fredrick Douglass had a lot to go through just to find what freedom is meant to him and the world. This essay will be giving the process of how Douglass found and defined freedom.
In Douglass’s narrative, he mentioned how slaves were tortured. By giving an example and a story of himself, where he didn’t know his own past as well as his birthday, with his fellow slaves (41). The fact that those slaves didn’t know their own past meant that their masters wanted them to be clueless, and not think of anything and just work. Because those slave owners thought that if slaves were to be educated they would become unmanageable, and unhappy with the knowledge they have because they wouldn’t be able to use it. An example, of that would be when Douglass’s was learning how to read and write by his mistress Mrs. Auld. Her husband found out and told her, …show more content…
To find out what was the power of his master, Douglass thought that it was a grand prize because he understood the pathway of slavery to freedom. According to Douglass’s narrative, he still was upset about the chance that was taken from him by his master for not letting him learn even though he found his way to be free, “what he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn”

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