Knoblauch concludes by stating that "no definition tells, with ontological or objective reliability, what literacy is; definitions only tell what some person or group ¯motivated by political commitments ¯wants or needs literacy to be- (Knoblauch, 128).
The first limiting factor of literacy is the political aspect of society. Fredric Douglass experienced these political and societal literary restraints first hand. Douglass realized the importance of literacy and its power for social and political change at a young age and grew to be one of the most respected and influential African-American men of his time. Douglass was not always held in such high regard; in fact, prior to his becoming literate, Douglass was recognized as nothing more than a slave. Due to the political views of Douglass's society, he was not given the opportunity to obtain any form of literary education for fear it would lead to an uprising by the oppressed. Although educating a slave was condemned by society, Douglass managed to achieve a limited amount of instruction by his slave owner's wife who taught him the alphabet as well as basic spelling. This small taste of education was short lived because when Douglass's master found out, he strictly forbid his wife to instruct Douglass any further. But it was too late, Douglass had already realized that his path to freedom was through literacy and from this point on he had a hunger to learn. Stopping at nothing to finance his literary goals, Douglass persuaded as many white children as he could to teach him what they had learned in school so that he may advance his literary skills. After fully learning to read, Douglass had realized that he had created a mental prison for himself that he could not escape in slavery. He had gone from an illiterate slave to a critically literate free man.
Douglass's literary understanding changes from the beginning of his essay to the end.