Frederick Douglas

In the passage “Learning to Read and Write”, Frederick Douglas was a very determined young man. As explained, he was a slave that was to be enslaved for the rest of his life. Douglas was also on a mission: a mission to become literate. In this article, Douglas pertains to his audience at all times in several different ways.


One way in which Douglas focused on his audience is by the diction he has used. In the piece, the words used to explain are not complicated in so many different aspects. For example,” When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return.” This sentence, even thought in modern English for that time, it is very understanding. It is also very simple.


Pathos is the appeal to emotion: according to the rhetoric triangle. Even though this piece of literature isn’t for the audience, it stills appeals to them emotionally. By Douglas being a slave that hits home right away. Many people, almost matter no culture, has ancestors who have been enslaved. Blacks, Native Americans, Germans, and even whites as indentured servants. By this being a fact, it draws the audience in because they have something to relate.


Douglas’s main purpose was to inform the audience, and that was achieved. In this work, audience was the main priority. Douglas made them his focus by his diction and by his simplicity.