EL336: Wm Douglass

From Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, pg. 97:

"Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had at learned this, she assisted me in my learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read."

When I read this I wondered what Plato would think. To Plato, writing was of lower intelligence when compared to oral communication. During in the classical world, writing defined intelligence--by this time period, illiteracy was looked down upon despite the fact that writing wasn't yet widely taught. Those who could read and write in the classical world defined their social stature by the type of script they wrote in. In Douglass' time of the mid 1800s in America, the ability to read and write was considered necessary by wealthy slave-owners and other higher class citizens who had the time and money to be taught. The ability to read and write was the social barrier between the slave and his owner; by teaching Douglass to read and write, Mrs. Auld was breaking the employee to employer boundaries and allowing Douglass to let his guard down around a women who could (back then) rightfully command his every move. Still today we consider those who lack to ability to read and write less fortunate than ourselves. Luckily today illiteracy is viewed as a problem that needs to be solved instead of an intended language and class barrier.