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.

‘I have no mother tongue , no mother to tongue no tongue to mother tongue me I must therefore be tongue dumb , dumb tongued ,  dub tongued damn dumb tongue but I have a dumb tongue, tongue dumb father tongue and English is my mother tongue , is my father tongue is a foreign lan  lan language , languish anguish a foreign anguish is English another tongue my mother, mommy,  mummy , mosair  maysayer maytear modare tongue …..” English is a foreign language that was instilled upon the slaves to keep them from being rebellious to their owners. By taking a way there ability to speak with one another in their foreign language they lost any sense of their culture “English is a foreign language and not a mummy tongue” oh how I cant get over these words so powerful and true . English is not the language of the foreigners , their mummy tongues , grand mothers tongues, great grand mothers tongues have vanished in the soil of the lad of the English . ” I have no mother tongue no mother to tongue ..”  in the narrative of Douglas he explains how the slave owners would part them from their mothers at early age to remove any connection and passage of culture. In the poem  she mentions parts of the brain  in the frontal cortex called brocas (named after psychologist Broca) who thought that white men had larger brains than blacks , minorities , and women therefore making them  inferior to the rest. Douglass had no mother to tounge and yet he was not tongue dumb beause of his passion to learn which took him from thinking of me to we to free and that he was . so English is a lan lan laguage languish anguish therefore it is not my freign language.

It was fairly easy to come the conclusion that after reading both William Blake’s, The Lamb & The Tyger ”, that the Lamb and Tyger both contrast each other in a number of ways, like two seasons with changes in weather days apart clearly felt as you walk outside. The Lamb and the Tyger each exhibit characteristics that the outside world we live in today, if I were to describe each of them like a particular season, the Lamb being like summer : warm, fruitful, and innocent and the Tyger I would say is like the winter ; dark, cold and foggy in its intentions . Each poem discusses why each created the way they were, and both question their place in the world. Both both obviously were created by a higher power. The lamb is described like a “child , soft, miled , well clothed”. Although the Tyger is put in a situation where he is doubted as it is exhibiting characteristics that are a polar opposite to the lamb. In both poems, like I mentioned before Blake, made the lamb so peaceful and beautiful like summer, while creating a creature so terrifying like the Tyger.

Shifting gears for a moment, Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, in the eyes of Victor like William Blake their creations appeal to them and are beautiful but at the same terrifying once brought to life on paper. It is with great difficulty to not come to the conclusion that the creature is an amalgamation of both the Lamb and the Tyger. Mary Shelley’s creature was made to be beautiful in the eyes of Victor, but once brought to life his perspective was completely changed. To quote the book, “his limbs were in proportion, and i had selected selected his features as beautiful, his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles arteries beneath, his hair was of a lustrous black , and flowing, his teeth of a pearly whiteness, but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set , his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips”.

After creating something, through a process that many would consider impossible, Victor chose to neglect his creation, out of genuine terror after realizing of what he thought of something as being beautiful, once it was literally set in motion with the enormous size it carries, Victor I believe foresaw the potential damage the creature would cause. His ambitious experiment failed an he felt nothing but distain for his creation. Normally when a creator plan is brought to fruition by bringing something or someone to life, it’s inventor expresses joy and happiness. Once the creature was brought to life, Victor thought of the creature as reflection of himself and realize what he himself was truly like as a person. The Lamb can be described as the creature, while the Tyger can be the creature and Victor. We all live in world that is filled with people and things that are characterized as good and evil, however it on certain occasions it is fairly easy to see that both good and evil can co-exist within something or someone.

Both The Lamb and the Tyger poems hold parallels with the story of Frankenstein and the creature. It’s almost funny given how short the poems are that they can hold so many similarities with the creature. That said I’m going back and forth between which poem has better similarities with the creature. My first reaction was that it was The Lamb, but that quickly changed as I read Tyger.

The Lamb is a poem that explores the little lamb who knows not it’s creator. Only to learn that his creator is a Lamb as well. Now both these points are comparable in some way to the creature and Frankenstein. Rather simplistically both the lamb and the creature initially don’t know who their creator is, only later to find out. The second part is hardly a connection to the creature from the book and more a connection with the common interpretation of the name Frankenstein. Commonly thought that Frankenstein is the creature itself and not the creator, much as the little lamb is called the same as it’s creator the Lamb. This connection is tenuous at best.

Tyger. This poem in contrast with The Lamb makes no explicit mention of not knowing who the creator is at first, only late showing that it does not know it’s creator, and that it may be the same individual as the one who created the little lamb. There are a few more lines than a simple lack of knowledge as a similarity that connect the Tyger to the creature; “…thy fearful symmetry?”, “…hand dare seize the fire?”, “…twist the sinews of thy heart?”, “Did he smile his work to see?”, and “…deadly terrors clasp!” First “…thy fearful symmetry” shows a connection between the tiger and the creature because the creature is described as having beautiful parts, that when brought together and brought to life are horrifying. “… hand, dare grasp the fire” this describes to me the relationship between Frankenstein , the hand and the creature, the fire. I make this connection through interpreting the creature as the fire, dangerous, but also the act of creating a flame of life. Playing with fire. “…twist the sinews of thy heart” illustrates what happened to the creature, humanity rejects him. “Did he smile his work to see?” illustrates Frankenstein’s rejection of his creation… he never smiled at his work, only ever rejecting it as a monster. Lastly, “…deadly terrors clasp!” can be a way to show the lethality of the creature, being very similar to Frankenstein’s description of the creature “…one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped…”

In conclusion for the reasons above I believe that Tyger the poem has more in common with the creature and the story of Frankenstein than The Lamb. The lamb as I see it only rally has one thing in common with the book and tiger has that as well, beyond that tyger has many more points in common with the creature to give it credence. That said it is easier for tyger to have those points because nothing was explicitly decided upon. Nearly everything mentioned is a question not a statement implying similarities not guaranteeing them.

” The Lamb & The Tyger ” resemble day and night to me . Each of these poems describe the world we live in today the Lamb being the day : innocent, peaceful, good and the Tyger  being the night;  scary , dark ,evil , and  mysterious. Both poems question there coming to the world and why they were created the way they were. Although they are some what opposites they also resemble one another in the sense that they were both created by a higher power & are both questioning their being. The lamb is described like a child , soft , miled , well clothed .While the Tyger is being questioned for his fearful symmetry . I guess the main question that’s being asked between both poems is how can the same creator who created something so peaceful and beautiful as the lamb  creates a creature so horrifying as the Tyger . Both these poems tie in with Mary Shellys Frankenstein the monster being a sublime in the eyes of victor,  beautiful yet horrifying at the same time. Can’t it be that the monster as described be a combination of both the Lamb and the Tyger . The creature in Frankenstein was described so beautifully and yet became a horrifying creature to the creator him self ” His limbs were in proportion , and i had selected  selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – great god ! his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black , and flowing ; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast  with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set , his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips .” {volume 1 ch.4}     Victor accomplished the unthinkable and yet it all meant nothing after his creation saw life . His dream vanished and felt nothing but disgust and horror in his heart. Normally a creator creates something/someone that relates to them , can it be that the creature is a reflection of victor himself . Its not till the creature was alive that he seen a reflection of  him self and realize what his inner self is like . The characteristics of the Lamb  can be used to describe victor during the day while the Tyger can be the creature (victor) at night . Over all we live in a ying and yang world we have both good and bad to give a balance we wouldn’t be able to recognize good without evil .

“The Lamb” and “The Tyger” seem to both be similar in a way that there are certain questions that are being asked throughout most of the poems, “who created such a creature?”,”how can that creator have thought of something so beautiful or horrid”? Although both poems are discussing the complexity of both creations, there is this unanswered question of why did the creator make these creations in this particular way? Is it to embrace the beauty and goodness of the creator or to show the horrid and evil creations of man that are unexplainable? Both poems relate to Frankenstein in which there is a particular creature that sets so many questions as to why or how and what is the meaning of this creation. I learned that the Monster from Frankenstein is not exactly this”monster” how most of the characters we encounter in the story say he is, he is really this lifeless and lonely individual who seeks a normal life involved with love and companionship. From the exterior I picture the monster to be as how the media have made him many years ago, as this giant green zombie looking creature with a scare on his forehead and these broad shoulders and that one lazy eye, anyone that comes across something like that will immediately get terrified and think its an evil monster. As I got to know more about the monster I figured that in the inside he isn’t this horrible and evil monster I thought he was, he actually is someone who simply seeks someone or something to build and share a life with.

In the text Frankenstein, anyone who sees the monster immediately rejects him or fears him because of his appearance, throughout the entire time he is alive he lives a life full of rejection and hate. While in both poems by William Blake the speaker is questioning such creations and trying to get an answer is to why these creations are the way they are. I think all three texts are similar in the way that there is something were just to figure out about these creations. Blake builds up this idea of nature is being a work of art, and that in a certain way it must have a reflection of its creator. There is a possibility that Victor might have created this monster as a reflection os himself and how his life has been. In the poems, it seems to me that the creator of these animals is God or possibly a God-like thing. These animals can be a reflection of God because of its beauty and mystery that cannot be answered and explained, we just accept it as it is. How an animal or a monster was made so perfect or symmetrical is a creation of god because of its complexity. When the monster in Frankenstein was finally complete and alive, Victor was so proud and he described it to be this beautiful creature because it is his own, or possibly a reflection of him. When something is your own you tend to find it so beautiful and has no flaws. The poems and Frankenstein both have this concept in which there is a creation that cannot be fully or completely explained but its a representation of the creator or of something beautiful that represents goodness or evil.