Literacy plays an important role in helping Douglass achieve his freedom. Learning to read and write enlightened his mind about the injustice of slavery; ignited in his heart the desire for freedom. Douglass's skills proved instrumental in his escape attempts and later in his mission as an anti-slavery spokesman. Douglass was motivated to learn to read by hearing his master condemn slave education. Mr. Auld declared that an education would “ruin” him and “make him forever unfit to be a slave” (2054). He believed that the ability to read made a slave “unmanageable” and “discontented” (2054). Douglass found that “the power of the white man to enslave the black man” (2054) lay in his literacy and education. As long as the slaves were ignorant, they would be resigned to their fate. However, if slaves were educated, they would understand that they were as fully human as white men and would realize the injustice of their treatment. Education is like a forbidden fruit to the slave; therefore, slave owners guard against this knowledge of good and evil. Nonetheless, d...