After reading Harper’s “Learning to Read” and Chestnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth,” my “aha!” moment came when I realized that the key source of power for characters in both of the readings was the knowledge. In class, we have talked about how slaves were further suppressed often by being forbidden to learn to read or write. After reading the poem and the short story, I immediately thought back to Frederick Douglas’s Narrative, in which he described learning to read as a very liberating experience. The knowledge he acquired opened the door for him to learn more about abolition, and led to his quest and eventual attainment of freedom.
In “The Wife of His Youth,” Sam Taylor used knowledge to climb his way from the bottom of society as a lowly mulatto slave to being the head of a prestigious society, the Blue Veins. This transformation by knowledge was so significant that it effectively made him a new person, and he even takes a new name, becoming the elite, refined gentleman Mr. Ryder. When the wife of his youth, Liza Jane comes back into his life, he is so changed that she doesn’t even recognize him. In a way, Liza stands as a foil to Mr. Ryder; he shows the picture of a man transformed by knowledge, while she remains a picture of what he would have been without it. Mr. Ryder uses knowledge to become better than himself, transforming his image and entire character drastically.
“Learning to Read” also reflects this idea that knowledge transforms a person. One specific point made about gaining literacy is the feeling of independence that comes with the skill. The slaves view literacy as a gift, and though the Southerners scoff at their thirst for knowledge, the slaves see what their masters do not: with knowledge comes power to learn and change oneself, to become independent and self sufficient, just as we see in Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and in “The Wife of His Youth.”
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