Assignment V:

Comparison and Analysis of the Writer's Voices

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Frederick Douglass

The Radical Heroes' Voices and Attitudes
Written by Preme Namfar

Frederick Douglass was born and raised with the status that had to lessen his status as a
human being. He was a slave. During that time, slavery considered to be something natural,
and the people were ignorant. The way slaveholders using "ignorance" as a tool for
enslavement, keeping the slaves ignorant, and portray to them that people of color are not
capable of being a part of civilized society. The slaves were not even acknowledging who
they are, who their parents were; the only thing they know was the duties slaves born with
were to work for the white people, and they never have a chance to learn to neither read nor
write. So, Douglass projected knowledge or the ability to read and write as the path to
freedom.

Nevertheless, he gives us a paradox point of view as he explained how the ability to read and
the knowledge upon it is a curse in disguise as Douglass learned more, he yearned more of
the freedom. As Douglass stated, "It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without
the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In
moments of agony, I envied my fellow‐slaves for their stupidity," the passage depicts the
burden he carried because of his knowledge, and it shows how angry his tone was. His world
view changed after he read more books and learn more about human rights made Douglass
despite his master, who viewed the educated slaves to be harmful once learned to endure the
ideas of being free or become more than just 'a property' for a wealthy family. His mistress
whom he once described as a kind and tender-hearted woman, and in the simplicity of her
soul, she commenced, when (he) first went to live with her, to treat (him) as she supposed one
human being ought to treat another. He then narrated her behavior changes once she had
entered upon duties of a slaveholder, "Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these
heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike
disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course
was in her ceasing to instruct me. She now commenced to practice her husband's precepts.
She finally became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself."

Moreover, he concluded that he needed to depend on himself to be free; the freedom to learn
is inside everyone. Still, we could either choose to be blinded by stupidity or trying to get the
liberty by learning even if the start may bring upon the feeling of unfortunate and despair, but
lastly, knowledge will set us free. Everyone is in charge of their own life decision, and
Frederick Douglass has chosen to get himself free by learning to depend on himself and his
curiosity and diligence. The way Douglass sees his master took the freedom to learn for
granted. He started copying the books and being a self-taught scholar; should make us, the
modern-day kids, appreciate everything the people before our time fight for. As the essay
ended with, "I continued to do this until I could write a hand very similar to that of Master
Thomas. Thus, after a long, tedious effort for years, I finally succeeded in learning how to
write." Within the civil rights for the people of color movement, Douglass was further along
the spectrum of "active." He extremely echoed his opinion against slavery in many forceful
ways. Douglass believed that everyone had an obligation, in any way possible, to resist the
institution of enslavement, so he had to become a martyr of the cause and turned into such
extremist.
Frances E.W. Harper's poem narrator Aunt Chloe expressed the time of her devastation
during the enslavement;

"Our masters always tried to hide

Book learning from our eyes;
Knowledge didn't agree with slavery—
'Twould make us all too wise."

The injustice of society during the time of enslavement displays clearly on Frances E. W.
Harper's poem, "Learning to Read." Painted how discrimination against people of color
during the time was despicable. The way Harper has shown how the slaveholders deprived
slaves of books, or we could say the knowledge was upsetting her but at the same time also
highlight the sheer hope of allowing to read someday. Harper's tone has not shown the rage
and sounded hopeful yet very opinionate and strongly suggests the unjust of the majority of
society at the time, which discriminates slaves who deemed to be lessened than other citizens.
We can notice that the poem has mentioned that the majority of people in the nation are
"slave owners," so they have more rights to choose the minority of people's (the slaves) faith
and limited their freedom.

Consequently, the time they all are free from slavery, no matter how old they are, they are
just glad to get the freedom to learn. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper retells the history from
the aspect of a freedwoman, using her Aunt Chloe's story. Still, she chose to refrain from the
stereotype activist jargon or what she called "gibberish," therefore discarding stereotyped
black voices that are more popular among the social justice warriors during the time. Harper's
poems usually establish civil discrimination for people of color, in which she supported but
provoked the extremist critics who take offense against an apologetic tone of poets who are
not extreme. Harper, despite this type of forceful political importance and because of that, the
critics at the time made her artistic contributions in the activist community considered as
artistically inadequate. All because she wouldn't proffer her voice to condemn the evils of
racism and the oppression of women, didn't mean she supports the white supremacy or the
American patriarchy. And this type of extremist attitude is still a big problem in our post-
modern society, especially the microaggression issues.

In this day and age, the modern society has transformed into something different yet
always have some similarity to the olden days. Both Harper and Douglass's works still hold
their value in terms of the radical voice and represent the social injustice and discrimination
upon our differences. Both of the stories remind us how much we all take our freedom and
education for granted and how coveted of learning was not that long ago. The way we all
asked for the equality and rights consumed our acknowledgment of the privilege we have
today but earned by the people before us, the less fortunate, the people who have to take the
risk to be able to "learn." It might sound basic for us all, but after reading Harper and
Douglass's story, we should be grateful for every book we have access to, every knowledge
source we can learn from, and the freedom to choose our destiny. The world will never
become truly equal for all because the privilege of being human is that we have been given
the free will and the freedom to think and believes - the privilege of being "individual." We
all should not take our so-called 'basic' rights for granted, and it is never too late to learn and
find your way to happiness.

Frederick Douglass expressed, "I wished to learn how to write, as I might have occasion to
write my own pass. I consoled myself with the hope that I should one day find a good
chance," we can see here that his opportunity was so limited, and all he could do then was
wishing for a chance. In Harper's poem which she depicts a sixties-year-old woman who just
had the opportunity to read the Bible and be able to call something 'her own' for the first
time;
"But as I was rising sixty,
I had no time to wait.
So, I got a pair of glasses,
And straight to work I went,
And never stopped till I could read
The hymns and Testament.
Then I got a little cabin
A place to call my own—
And I felt independent
As the queen upon her throne."

The passage best defines similarity in terms of liberation in learning to read just as much as
Douglass's quote presented above. From this part of the poem, we can also see the difference
in the tone and attitude between Douglass's essay and the feeling inside Aunt Chloe in
Harper's poetry. The reason is both pieces were written in a different environment. Douglass
is more popular than Frances Harper, but she is more polished and more refined, and she
should have been a lot more popular in her time. Harper was born as a free woman. Yet, she
understood the brutality of enslavement and how hard was it for the slaves to even had a
chance to learn to read. Her poem's attitude shows her upsetting tone but not an anguished
tone like Frederick Douglass's, an escaped slave who usually depicted the pain and anger in
his writings as they both tell the story from an entirely different perspective and environment.
The way Harper was never a slave, did not have experienced subjugation to know its terrors
differentiated her voice from Douglass, who we get the 'anecdotes' of the heroic slave. As he
told his story about how he rose up to fight for freedom by learning on his own during the
time that learning would endanger him, he deemed himself to be a slave breaker. What
Frederick Douglass did best is presenting reasoned debates against the foundation of slavery
and paved the way to freedom through his words. From "Learning to Read and Write" essay,
which is an excerpt for his autobiography, he was comparing himself to the complaining
white boys who will eventually grow up and became their own man, and able to choose their
destiny. He wrote, 'I wished I could be as free as they would be when they got to be men.
"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?" These words used to trouble them; they would express for me
the liveliest sympathy, and console me with the hope that something would occur by which I
might be free.' But Frances Harper's writings appear to resonate with beliefs, compassion, and
insurgency more. Harper's poem is a powerful invocation of the African American response
to slavery and racial oppression without being extreme.

Epilogue:

Inclusion without racialism may be a distressing message to digest for people of several races
and beliefs who have made careers out of pleading to racial, sexual, and political
discrimination, guilt, or victimization. Inclusion into “what” will always be a subject that
must maintain to be discussed. "The politics of perception," of aesthetic, ethnic, semantic,
spiritual, and gender diversity, is an unchanging component of 21st-century political culture.
Trying to accomplish uniformity by uniting people around their fear of an external or internal
opponent can only be a comprehensive "short-term" strategy. We all are human, and we all
are the same. The differences, ability to reason and individualities are what separates us from
wild animals.