Question

Frederick Douglass writes, “I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagems.” In 100 words, discuss how this is foreshadowing of the content and the writing style in this chapter.

Answer 1

This sentence foreshadows about the possible numerous interaction of Frederick Douglass with various kinds of people in his quest for knowledge as his life advances. It also foreshadows about the tricks and innovative ways he adopted in order to educate himself, since teaching a slave was a crime at that time. We see that later after he learns a few letters of the alphabet, he asked the other kids in the neighborhood whether they could beat him in knowing more letters than him. That was a strategy that he came up with in order to learn more letters of the alphabet. Another strategy was secretly copying what master Thomas had written into the empty spaces left behind in his book.

Answer 2

In this chapter Frederick Douglass use basic skills like reading and writing to tell us how he learned some other things or skills. The important is what he gains from learning these basics skills He shows us that he compelled to resort to various stratagems. These stratagems are ways to outwit someone. He used them to learn how to complete and find out all the disadvantages of life and to overcome them.

"Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave" is a personal story in which the author points out educating himself.

The process of education is important due to his achievements and success in outwitting his owners and other people.

He uses two familiar things as a metaphor for goals in learning. His writing style is clear, precise and correct in explaining the process of learning basics skills. He does not use many adverbs or adjectives but emphasizes the important things.