Intellect can invoke a series of ideas that affect people in a positive or negative manner. The essays “The Library Card” by Richard Wright and “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, both emphasize the importance and epitomize the significance in being educated. In both cases, knowledge destabilizes them and causes them to develop a hatred for themselves and others. In addition, they both realize that the knowledge they have acquired does not make freedom any less evasive. On a positive note, however, knowledge equips both men with common sense which they use to manipulate and deceive others to their own advantage. Douglass and Wright would argue that knowledge is powerful, and it is both a source of happiness and sadness in their
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For Frederick Douglass, living during the time of slavery is an extreme adversity, which he contributes to the power of knowledge. His discovery of the concept of freedom is shown in the statement: “ You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life! Have not I as good a right to be free as you have?” (Douglass 134). Douglass’s conversation with the young white boys introduces to him the idea that freedom exists, but knowing this hurts him because it is a desire which he will never be able to achieve. As for Richard Wright the same idea is captured, he expresses this in the quotation: “My reading had created a vast sense of distance between me and the world in which I lived and tried to make a living, and that a sense of distance was increasing each day” (Wright). Wright’s knowledge begins to overtake his mind in overbearing thoughts, knowing that independence was not easy to attain for a colored man like himself. Another example of Wright’s realization is shown in the statement: “ I told none of the white men on the job that I was planning to go north; I knew that the moment they felt I was thinking of the North they would change toward me” (Wright). As Wright’s knowledge informed him of the segregated area in which he lives in, he knows that the idea to attempt to escape was unreal, because leaving does not mean he will not remain in the same situation as he is already in. For both writers Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright, the concept they discovered of freedom became their worst nightmare. They knew of its existence but understood that it was a plan they could never obtain; therefore, psychologically hurting them on having this hopeless
For Frederick Douglass, living during the time of slavery is an extreme adversity, which he contributes to the power of knowledge. His discovery of the concept of freedom is shown in the statement: “ You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life! Have not I as good a right to be free as you have?” (Douglass 134). Douglass’s conversation with the young white boys introduces to him the idea that freedom exists, but knowing this hurts him because it is a desire which he will never be able to achieve. As for Richard Wright the same idea is captured, he expresses this in the quotation: “My reading had created a vast sense of distance between me and the world in which I lived and tried to make a living, and that a sense of distance was increasing each day” (Wright). Wright’s knowledge begins to overtake his mind in overbearing thoughts, knowing that independence was not easy to attain for a colored man like himself. Another example of Wright’s realization is shown in the statement: “ I told none of the white men on the job that I was planning to go north; I knew that the moment they felt I was thinking of the North they would change toward me” (Wright). As Wright’s knowledge informed him of the segregated area in which he lives in, he knows that the idea to attempt to escape was unreal, because leaving does not mean he will not remain in the same situation as he is already in. For both writers Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright, the concept they discovered of freedom became their worst nightmare. They knew of its existence but understood that it was a plan they could never obtain; therefore, psychologically hurting them on having this hopeless