Development in literacy is shown from our past, from wars to political issues, to even literature. It represents itself in many important ways. Literacy is used in a way to develop to a certain surroundings. For example The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, our main character Liesel, discovers her first book and soon discovers its powerful impact, …show more content…
Art work by William Orpen called “the window seat” depicts of a middle aged Victorian woman confined in a room, the window and the book, provide release into the world of imaginings. Also the picture expresses transitory feeling of alienation in her hometown, inferring that it must be a time of war and the woman is longing for a sense of escape by holding the book we can see the literal part of the painting on how the woman uses the novel for the escape. The painting overall indicates war tragedy and paints the wife, the window seal, and the book to symbolize new horizons. In addition, the narrative written by Fredrick Douglass “learning to read and write”. Fredrick Douglass states in his biography that he understood the pathway from slavery to freedom and it was to have the power to read and write. He explained how in times of crisis he would teach himself how to read and write even though his slave masters would shun at the fact he is trying to be literate. “Every opportunity I got I used to read this book” (Douglas). Fredrick learned to overcome the hard life of being a slave, even though he knew that he was bound to be a slave for entirety “I wished I could be as free as they would be when they got to be men… but I’m a slave for life” (Douglas). The reader can infer that Douglass would …show more content…
Literacy is not about what number of books you can read or rather it is measured by the understanding man has picked up. For an example in the campaign ad by George Wallace “Jims crow must go” the picture shows a black kid looking up writing in his book, with knowledge the ad is from the 40’s when African Americans didn’t have equal rights as the whites and were discriminated from many things one such as education and being literate. The ad shows a traumatic event taking place where literacy is being deprived from the lives of the young African Americans. In addition education is self-empowerment so if you wanna keep someone down you must keep them uneducated and that’s what the whites did back in the time of slavery and the civil rights movement towards the African Americans and minorities of the time. They restricted their use of books and school so they don’t gain empowerment. Just like the Jim Crow law which limited the African Americans