In order for slaves to rescue themselves from slavery, they
must educate themselves. It is from Hugh Auld that Douglass learns this notion
that knowledge must be the way to freedom, because Auld prohibits his wife from
teaching Douglass how to read and write because education ruins slaves.
Douglass sees that Auld has unwittingly revealed the strategy by which whites
manage to keep blacks as slaves and by which blacks might free themselves. Douglass
presents his own self-education as the primary means by which he is able to free
himself, and as his greatest tool to work for the freedom of all slaves.
Frederick Douglass wanted freedom for all
slaves, but Captain Canot wanted slavery. Frederick Douglass devoted the bulk
of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining
equal rights for African Americans. These were the central concerns of his long
reform career. Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and
equality required forceful, persistent, and rigid agitation.
Douglass likewise maintains distance between
himself and slavery in his commentary on slave songs. He explains that he did
not fully understand the meaning of the songs when he himself was a slave, but
can now recognize and interpret them as laments. Douglass’s voice in the Narrative
is authoritative, and this authority comes from his standing as someone who has
escaped mental and physical slavery and embraced education and articulation.
Douglass’s position as mediator between slaves and the Northern white reading
audience rests on his doubling of self. He must be both the demeaned self who
experienced slavery and the liberated, educated self who can interpret the
institution of slavery.
Hope that helps
