Emmanuel Ikhidero.
Professor Joshua Belknap
English 100.
Homework #3
There are various similarities and differences between Plato’s
“Allegory of the cave” and Frederick Douglass’s “learning how to read”.
One of the similarities between these two readings is the fact that both
readings involve the act of slavery. In Plato’s allegory of the cave, the
people inside the cave are chained and also made to face the wall, hereby
depriving them of seeing the light (Knowledge). In Frederick Douglass
situation, he was also a slave, but he wasn’t constrained like the other slaves
in Plato’s cave. These two readings also have the same main idea, which is
the fact that the slaves from Plato’s cave, and Frederick Douglass, both lived
in mental darkness. The lack of education or literacy was the main difficulty
in both cases.
There are also some differences between the two readings. In Plato’s
allegory of the cave, knowledge is given forcefully and it is received
reluctantly by the slave who was dragged out by an unknown person. During
this process the slave encounters the light and sees the different beautiful
creatures of the earth, this gives the slave an idea of how the outside world
looks like, and how it feels to be free. By this encounter, the slave acquires
knowledge and then returns to share his knowledge with the other slaves.
Also whosoever dragged the slave out of the cave into the light stands as
a teacher figure, without the teacher figure in this cave, the slave wouldn’t
have gained any knowledge of the outside world. Frederick Douglass case
was different, he had a thirst/ lust for knowledge, he made out certain
strategic plans to succeed in his search for knowledge, “The plane which I
adopted, and the one which I was most successful, was that of making
friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street.” Frederick
Douglass search for knowledge was also dangerous, “Fro this time I was
narrowly watched. If I was in a separate room ant considerable length of
time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called to
give account of myself”. This way he endangered his life, for the acquisition
of knowledge.
In no time, Frederick Douglass gained so much knowledge of who he really
was, and what he stood for. The reality of being a slave began to haunt him
“It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me”.
Although Frederick Douglass felt that “learning to read had been a curse
rather than a blessing”, the hope of being free, still kept him going.
The idea of the two essays is all about knowledge and how far one can go to
acquire knowledge, the sacrifices that must be made to get knowledge, the
freedom that knowledge brings to one. I believe that Plato’s idea in the
allegory of the cave is that, knowledge is somewhere, out there, and all that
is needed is to search for it and find it, so that freedom and understanding
can be easily accessible.