Frederick Douglas ?'s

1. Frederick Douglas had a little bit of help from his mistress in learning to read. However, he mostly taught himself by making friends with as many white boys as he could and used them as teachers to guide him in his sneaky learning. However, once he learned to read he learned of his situation and the cruel and unjust aspects of it.

2. Douglas's mistress also goes through a learning process. Only her results are not good. She goes from being a sweet kind woman who tries to teach her slave how to read to a strict and harsh slave owner.

4. I can very much relate to Douglas. One thing about me is I love to learn and soak up as much knowledge as I can. However, more recently, there have been many things I've learned, that in hindsight I wish I had not learned because learning them only made me realize how bad the world really is. It can be really depressing sometimes because I used to fully believe in the statement that "Knowledge is power" but I am beginning to think that perhaps the opposite is more true, that "Ignorance is bliss".