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Ka Yu Yan
Professor Johnson
Eng151
2 April 2014
Draft Compare and Contrast Essay
Knowledge Is Power
In the article, “Learning to Read” and “Coming to an Awareness of Language”, the
respective authors, Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, state that how knowledge helps the
authors to change their perspective and lives. The first article is about the author who is a slave
and desires the mental freedom. Through learning how to read and write, Douglass understands
his situation and attempted to get rid of slavery. Another article is about the author who is in
prison and feels frustrated when he cannot fully express his thought, so he decides to learn how
to write well. Although they are different stories, they have the similar themes which they both
make a great commitment on studying to read and write. However, there are some differences
between two articles. The two authors have different reason to learn, and they express varied
emotion after they become knowledgeable.
The purposes of the two articles are different. In “Learning to Read”, the author is being a
slavery for a long time. When he talks to the white boys, he says “You will be free as soon as you
are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life!”(Douglass 192). On the one hand, he envies the boys
who can have their own lives; on the other hand, he feels depressed as he knows he needs to
spend and work in his master’s house for his entire life, and he cannot do what he wants. He
wants freedom and he hopes that “something would occur by which I might be free” (Douglass
192). One times, when he read a book called “The Columbian Orator” which is about a slave of
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life. In one part of the book, there is an “argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by
the master” between the master and the slave (Douglass 192), and the slave uses a wise way to
reply the master. As a result, the master agrees to give the freedom to the slave. Because of this,
Douglass realizes that knowledge is the only way to help him to get the freedom. Therefore, he
decides to make a big effort to learning how to read in order to get rid of slavery.
In the article “Coming to an Awareness of Language”, the author’s purpose of learning to
read is to help himself to express his thoughts better. When he attempts to write the letters to his
friends and the Politian, he realizes that writing a letter “acquires some kind of homemade
education”(X 68). Also, X says “I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express
what I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote” (X 68). At that time, he perceives that having a
good writing ability is the only way to help him to express his own thoughts perfectly to others;