Frederick Douglass was the writer of his own autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavehood, most likely the child of his mother’s master. Of his quest, he says, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” He begins unlike many slaves, with a fairly tame childhood. Considering he was still young he was put to work in the house instead of in the field. After this he is moved to Baltimore where he is ultimately freer, and the wife of his master there begins to teach him. After she stops he continues to learn, until he is passed to his master’s son-in-law. He is then sent to a slave owner who set him straight. …show more content…
But Frederick does not let this stop him. Regardless of his obstacles he continues on his path to freedom, educating fellow slaves on the way. Frederick says, “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.” He persisted on his road to freedom, and ended up having a master who let him save money to buy his own freedom. Although his personal freedom was a large goal, however, the even larger goal was to help others to freedom with him. Through the education that he received and passed on to others, he significantly helped them and changed many of their lives. He was happy to have done this, and though he personally benefitted from his self-teaching of literacy among other things, it was not his primary goal to do so.
The Scarlet Letter
Hester Prynne is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. She is a young woman who has an affair, and afterward has to wear an embroidered letter on her chest showing that she has done this unholy thing. Hester for a long time plans on staying in the Puritan community where she has received this mark, and bearing the consequences of her …show more content…
This story follows him through much of his life, from childhood up until he is twenty-three. He struggles with addiction throughout the story, beginning with alcohol and leading up to hard drugs like meth. This story follows him through his hardships in recovery. He wants deep down to recover, because of his baffling and complicated history with drugs of many kinds, but he keeps getting sucked in by the incurable disease of addiction. There are many times in this story where it looks as if he is going to make it, but then he relapses, and he goes back to square one. He loses many aspects of his life because of his drug addiction, and destroys many relationships on the way, as well as jobs and schooling opportunities. Nic faces many challenges on his road to staying clean. He goes through multiple phases and periods of not contacting his family at all, which leads them to sleepless worrying. While he is high, he acts out in ways he wouldn’t normally, and is hostile to the ones that love him. Drugs change the way his brain chemistry works completely. David (the narrator and author) says, “An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie to you. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.” The drugs also affect Nic in the way that he ends up breaking into David’s house, as well as his mother’s and step-grandparents’ house. He gives his cell phone to a random person at a bus station