The Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass and the poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” by M. NourbeSe Philip compliment each other. The poem focuses on the power of language during slavery and touches upon some of the main issues in Douglass’ narrative.

The narrative informs the reader that Douglass was strayed away from his mother at an early age. He lost that human connection that a child is suppose to get as Philip describes a mother gibing her child her native tongue: “…She touches her tongue to the child’s tongue and holding the tiny mouth open she blows into it hard. She was blowing words. Her mother’s words those of her mother’s mother and all their mothers before her daughter’s mouth.” Douglass didn’t have his mother’s tongue. The only tongue he knew was the English tongue but even then he was limited to only knowing how to speak it.

Knowing the English tongue, as Philip suggests, is a “foreign anguish.” Edict II of the poem describes the consequences of speaking their (the slaves) native tongue to each other. There is the great possibility that communicating will lead to rebellion. Douglass figured this out when Mr. Auld forbade Mrs. Auld from teaching Douglass how to read and write because teaching “that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave” (20). Language is a powerful tool in life to get ahead. The slaveholders knew this and prevented the slaves from learning. But Frederick Douglass caught on at an age and realized that language was the “pathway from slavery to freedom” (20).

The connection between the narrative and the poem is very remarkable because the poem is sort of like an interpretation of the narrative and how Douglass was able to educate himself and other slaves simply by learning how to read and write. Learning how to read and write is kind of like learning a new language, you’re learning these new words and learning how to pronounce and write them is equivalent to learning a new language. In the narrative, when Sophia Auld started teaching Douglass how to read, her husband Hugh immediately put an end to it because he said that educating a slave makes them unmanageable. Ever since her husband told her, her attitude completely changed towards Douglass, she went from this caring and helpful person to this unkind and cruel person. This did not stop Douglass, through all his struggles as a slave he continued teaching himself how to read and write, thats where he really began to open his eyes and realize the actual cruelty in slavery. He started this mini movement among the slaves where he taught them how to read and in a sense he started educating them. In the poem, there is a part where she says , “if they cannot speak to each other then they cannot then form rebellion and revolution”, the slaveowners knew that if the slaves educated themselves they would rebel. Douglass’s goal was exactly that, to teach the slaves and sort of enlighten them, which will eventually cause a revolution. I think that the poem in a way sums up what Douglass was trying to do from the perspective of another slave. The narrator of the poem is a slave that expresses his or her own point of view or experience as Douglass began has teaching of writing and reading. Both the narrative and the poem connect because the poem is a literary interpretation of the experience in learning something new and going against your high power and how the learning process really felt like.

There are a few themes that jumped off the page as I was reading the “A Narrative Of the Life Of Frederick Douglas” and then watching the clip the “Discourse on Logic of Language”. Both writers point out how language can be the most basic and powerful tool. Something that remains constant throughout the book and the clip is connect they both had when discussing the power of language, and how it gives us the ability to learn how to think for ourselves and express our feelings towards one another. That is clearly a very power tool, language is the gateway to human connection which in turn opens up tremendous possibilities. In the words of,Edward Bulwer-Lytton,” The pen is mightier than the sword. By learning how to read and write and taking your ideas and writing them down on paper, it threatens the very foundation of slavery, you open the possibility of a revolt and then possibly turning your master into a slave, Douglass was a prime example of that. In the “Narrative Of the Life Of Frederick Douglas,” his master tells his wife “not to teach Frederick to read and write because he believes that illiterate slaves have lesser values and literacy makes slaves become miserable” which only reinforces my point that once the gateway to human connection is established, the slave master believes that threatens the statues quo . He also states,“if you give a n***** an inch, he will take an ell… Learning will spoil the best n***** in the world”. He further states “ the slave would at once become unmanageable and be of no value to his master” In response, however to what master’s perceived and the ultimate threat, Douglass mentions that slaves who had the desire to learn how to read and write were punished, each punishment handed down, quickly kept the established order of things untouched. The slave master’s owners desire to keep their slaves uneducated so, that they are unable to attain the necessary tools that are the fountain of a revolt, change starts with just a single idea, and the slave owners detested the idea of freedom which meant dramatic change. Change that could result with a domino effect for the rest of the country. Nourbese also addresses, that as well in the reading of the poem. She suggests that language and the lack there of can lead to the manipulation of people who are not of great wealth by classifying them as being not good enough.

The autobiography of Fredrick Douglass’s “Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass” and the poem “Discourse on the Logic of language” both are adopted from the same background and the background is the discrimination between the white and other colored people. Both of the writings talk about the fact that sometimes situations become so worse in a life time that the language that comes from the mouth becomes a father language therefore a foreign language which is hard to express and the language that stays in the mind becomes the mother language which is easy to express. In the autobiography the narrator writes that things around him becomes so terrified that he cannot raise his voice even if he wants to. The language becomes short enough to fulfill the requirement that the mind wants.

The strong connection that I find between the two pieces is both of these show me the brutality and cruelty against the slaves regarding education and language. In the poem the poet says, “Every owner of slaves shall………………….rebellion and revolution.” In the book Fredrick Douglass says”If you give a……………no value to his master.” (P 20) Both of these quotations illustrate the mentality of the masters toward their slaves. They do not want their slaves to be literate, so that they could keep them as slaves forever. The master never want their slave to speak out because they believe that if they speak out it would be hard for them to keep them under control. The poem says the same thing in more crucial way. It says that the slaves’ tongs used to get cut so that they cannot cooperate with each other.

The autobiography and the poem both has another thing in common which is the lacking of humanity. The slaves are prepared to be slaved from the very beginning. They get separated from their mother, most of them do not even have an identity of their father, moreover they are not even allowed to see their mothers after they die. The poem illustrates the same point. It says that, the mother tries to love her child as much as she can within this short time that she has to spend with her. As she knows that she would never get a chance to see her child again.

The language is misused when the slaves could not raise their voice when they think that things are going wrong. Again the language is misused when the slave owners think that creating obstacles against education and literacy will keep the slaves’ mouth shut. Once again the language is misused when people lost all their humanity, morality and try to establish the point that they are born to be slaved.

Major theme of both “Narrative Of the Life Of Frederick Douglas” and “Discourse on Logic of Language” is the power of language that allows us to communicate with each other, learn by reading, and have your thoughts written down. They both explore the idea that illiteracy can rob away human’s ability to make human connection, broaden our perspective, and articulate our ideas and thoughts in written form. In the “Narrative Of the Life Of Frederick Douglas,” his master tells his wife not to teach Frederick to read and write because he asserts that illiterate salves have lesser values and literacy makes slaves become miserable. He writes,“if you give a n***** an inch, he will take an ell… Learning will spoil the best n***** in the world.” He further states “he (the slave) would at once become unmanageable and be of no value to his master”(Narrative of The Life of Fredrick Douglass 20) In addition, according to Frederick’s account, he mentions that slaves who attempt to learn to read and write are severely punished. It’s very clear that the slave owners desire to keep their slaves ignorant so they are unable to learn knowledge and necessary tools to fight for their freedom. Similarly, Phillip points out how language can be misused to oppress less privileged by labeling them as less worthy. Therefore, both authors point out how language can be the most basic and powerful tool.

When NourbeSe reads her poem, you can see a physical connection and a symbolic connection through the mother tongue. Slaves during the 1800s were expendable so they weren’t too expensive to maintain. All they needed was some clothing and minimal food to survive. They weren’t educated because it wasn’t like the ability to read was going to help them while working in the field. Also it cut them off from the rest of world. Today we can learn about a country and its culture by simply reading about it. But if we didn’t know how to read and there were no photographs, how would we know about the place. The slaves were illiterate so that they wouldn’t know about the ideas of freedom and wouldn’t be encouraged to revolt. As NourbeSe and Douglas state, those who tried to learn a language were punished and served as an example to other slaves. This would condition others to associate learning with pain. They have no way of knowing that they can become free without seeing or learning about the outside world. When the overseer, Mr. Gore, says that he made the slave an example to prevent the enslavement of white men, you can tell

The symbolic connection comes in when NourbeSe says “I have no mother to tongue…I am tongue dumb.” Douglas didn’t know his mother for too long after his birth and all that he remembers isn’t enough to have loved her. Also he is tongue dumb because he didn’t get the chance to learn anything from her and therefore he lacked a human connection from early in life. You can tell that he didn’t care about her because when the time came to leave the plantation he felt no sadness or hesitation. He felt no “anguish” when he heard about his mother’s death because he didn’t know his mother or her mother tongue. There was no emotional attachment between them.

In this poem, Discourse on the Logic of Language, the idea of language is a continual theme. The speaker of this poem explains how language is not only important as a way of communication and connectivity with other humans being, but also as an identity aspect of one’s self. The poem says that “English is a foreign language”, to me this represents the removal of slaves in society. Taking language away from slaves disconnects them to other people in society.

In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of a Life he discusses how important learning to read and write was to him. To Douglass it was way for him to become free. Slaves weren’t permitted to learn how to read and write. Learning language would allow Douglass to not only be able to communicate with other people. It would have allowed him to connect with the white slaveholders.

Language is a basic human right that everyone has, and the fact that slaves were denied this is unimaginable. Slaves were denied all ways of connectivity; they were separated from their families at a young age and they weren’t allowed to learn language. While keeping all of this from slaves they are keeping knowledge away from them. Not being able to communicate and connect with people is taking away freedoms and the ability to gain knowledge. This idea is addressed in both the poem and Douglass’s narrative.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and “Discourse on the Logic of Language” by M. NourbeSe Philip are two pieces of work that can be compared to one another. M. NourbeSe Phillip talks about language through the use of the mother and father tongue. She states that language has the ability to oppress and divide. With the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas, slaves are divided from the whites because they do not have the capacity to read, write or speak as the whites do. Language is often misused as to what it can and cannot do. When Frederick Douglass is relocated to Baltimore, his new mistress, Mrs. Auld, starts to teach him how to read. Douglass begins to develop his basic reading skills. However, Mr. Auld finds out and berates Mrs. Auld and justifies, “if you give a n***** an inch, he will take an ell… Learning will spoil the best n***** in the world.” He further states “he (the slave) would at once become unmanageable and be of no value to his master”(Narrative of The Life of Fredrick Douglass 20). This shows that language therefore has the power to dehumanize and lead to anguish as Philip shows through her breakdown of the word.

After watching M. NourbeSe Philip reading her poem “Discourse on the Logic of language”, I couldn’t help but notice the passion with which the speaker was delivering her poem. While watching it, you could feel that she had a true connection with it and meant what she wrote. The main concept of the poem sprouts from the idea of the logic of language. The logic of language is basically another way to connect and communicate with others. It is, in a sense, the flow of ideas for a purpose. To demonstrate this, the poem repeats the word “language” over and over again to eventually warp it into “anguish”. To me, this is a prime example of a free use of language. The idea of a free use of language is also something the occurs in the autobiography of Frederick Douglas and is what ultimately sets Douglas free. At one point, he is restricted from learning language by his pervious master. This leads him to the very important revelation that in order to truly gain his freedom he must oppose his masters wishes and learn language. Specifically, he says, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I least expected it.” (Frederick Douglas). This truly shows how powerful language can be. It has the power to make an ignorant man educated, and thus making him knowledgeable.