Malcolm X/ Frederick Douglas Comparative Essay

Basil Al Bader 99629 English Composition I Contras/Comparative Essay Final Draft Malcolm X / Frederick Douglas Malcolm X and Frederick Douglas were two main figures of the black community in the United States.

Both of them were self-educated. Both of them faced challenges to achieve their education and both of them had impacted by the growth of their knowledge. We will see in this essay how they learned, the challenges they faced while trying to learn and what impact learning had on them. For both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglas, learning to read was a whole process that took time.

The first point that we will state is the environment in which they learned to read and write. In 1946,Malcolm X was sentenced eight to ten years in prison. This is where his interest for reading and writing took birth. It is alone in prison that Malcolm opened his first book, which for a matter was a dictionary.

In his biography, Malcolm explains the frustration he constantly felt while trying to express his feelings in letter that he wrote. It is this frustration that led him to request a dictionary. At that point, Malcolm did not realize so many words existed “I spent two days just riffling ncertainly through the dictionary pages. I’d never realized so many words existed! ” (211) It is at that point that he started to copy the dictionary. After copying the first page, he’d read his notes out loud over and over.

By this process, Malcolm created for himself a great way to learn “ I woke up next morning, thinking about those words … I could also remember what many of those words meant” (211). At that point Malcolm was launched “I was so fascinated that I went on … I copied the dictionary’s next page”. Frederick Douglas process to learn was different. The first point that we will state is that Frederick was a slave.He wasn’t initially allowed to learn to read and write. However, he had the chance to be introduced to that valuable knowledge by his mistress “Very soon after I went to live with Mr.

and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C” (Page given in class). Unfortunately, this situation didn’t last. Once his master realized what was going on, the mistress’s attitude changed.

She actually stopped teaching him and for a matter of fact became an obstacle to his learning. From now on Frederick had to find an other way to learn. One way that he describes as being the most successful was to convert every sing id that he met into a teacher “ The plan, which I adopted, and the one by which I was the most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street” (130). This is the main reason of his success to learn reading “With their kindly aid … I finally succeeded in learning to read”.

The main difference that we can find between the ways they learned is that Malcolm X learned on his own, with no help while Frederick Douglas used the knowledge of his peers. Learning to read was a long process but it is important to say that it was a hard process.Both of them faced challenges while learning. Life in prison is ruled by very strict rules. Malcolm X had, in a certain way, to fight with theses rules.

One of them was the light extinction. Every night, at ten P. M. , lights were turned of and night guards passes in front of every room every hour. Malcolm X describes this situation “ … every night at about ten P.

M. I would be outraged with the ‘’lights out’’… At one-hour interval at night guards paced past every room” (213). Determined to read Malcolm always founded a way to overcome theses challenges “ Fortunately, right outside my door was a orridor light that cast a glow into my room. The glow was enough to read by … each time I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep”. Frederick Douglas had to face an other type of challenge. The first one was the mean behavior of his masters.

As said previously, Frederick’s mistress’s attitude changes. This changes is a major obstacle to his learning as he describes in his biography how violent her opposition was “The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me … She became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself “.Frederick had also the feeling of being watched, under surveillance, which he describes in his book “ From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a separate room … I was sure to be suspected of having a book” (130). One thing that we can notice on both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglas is the impact that learning to read and write had on them. Both of them realized and understood more about the Black history, the injustice they had to face and the sadness of this situation.

It also impacted on their self-esteem and self confidence. In “Learning to Read”, Malcolm X makes us understand how learning to read as positive for him and helped him to support his imprisonment as he says “Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life” (212). The passion he developed for reading made time timeless.

Reading allowed him to understand the history of black people, which became the main subject of his readings “I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror … Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world’s black…peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation” (214-215). For Malcolm X reading is the lement that will change his life forever as he says “ reading opened to me … reading had changed forever the course of my life” (217). We can definitely say that reading had a positive impact on Malcolm X. It opened his eyes and allowed him to gain confidence in himself and to become the great activist that we know. Frederick Douglas, in the contrary, makes us feel that he did not appreciate the consequences of that learning as much as Malcolm.

Actually, reading and more specifically learning about the black history arouses in him a deep anger, as he says “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers” (132).Frederick also describes the very deep sufferance he had by reading, “read had already come, to torment and sting my soul” (132). It is obvious that it is not much reading that hurt him but the knowledge he gets out of it. The impact was so negative; he really gives us the feeling that at some point he was going threw a real depression, “I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity … I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead” (132). After comparing Malcolm X and Frederick Douglas, we can notice that both of them learned to read and write in their own way, that both of them had to face hallenges but the most important thing to notice is that both of them became very important figures of the black community in America and both of them played an important role in the evolution of the conditions of the black community.

It is important to say that in both cases, reading opened doors for them. It allowed them to be more conscious of their history and of course gives them more knowledge to understand it. I really think that the overall message that we should get from these two stories is the importance to educate ourselves, that this education that now a days, a lot of people still can’t access is one of the keys to freedom.