Fredrick Douglas is a slave who deals with hardships learns to read, and write educating himself while on the other hand Hugh and Deborah are both uneducated stuck in the poorest class of society with no real way out. Education is a major theme in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and “Life in the Iron Mills” Being educated and not educated takes a toll on the characters in both storys, it shows that education, as well as the lack of education has both positive and negative effects on the characters. Fredrick lives in slavery being uneducated he is basically in darkness and knows nothing much of his situation as most slaves did. One day his master’s wife Mrs. Auld started to teach him to read, when Mr. Auld finds out he is enraged.…show more content… Auld to instruct me further, telling her among other things that it was unlawful as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read… He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good. It would make him unhappy and discontent” (Douglass 960). After overhearing this information it fuels Fredrick and makes him desire to learn more and become further educated. With the learning he becomes more intelligent he has thoughts and even realized the actual state he was in. This new found knowledge in turn makes him depressed because with more knowledge he became more consciously aware and his eyes were opened making him realize the true tragedy and unbelieveable hardship he was going through. When Douglass exclaims, “I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out” (Douglass 963). The new found information provided a platform that drove Fredrick to want out of slavery but with that also came the defaulting and pain of knowing no way out of slavery. With his intelligence and continually growing the education made him want freedom even more. He began to teach and educate other slaves making them have a realization of what was going
