In Chapter X, there’s a passage which I really admire:

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery,—that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans
to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one.“

I think it is very inspiring the way he refuses to be lured by any temptations of impermanent sense of satisfaction. It shows his unyielding quality, a willpower that aligns with his strong moral compass to not settle with the lesser evil that is slavery but with acceptable conditions. Evil is evil, and there should not be compromises. Happiness is not given, it is sought and pursued by a person.

It also brings us back to Chapter VII, in which Douglass regards of the even of him learning how to read being a “curse” because he is no longer able to shut himself off from thoughts of what could be better and how stuck he is. It’s like the curse of being an intellectual who is ahead of their time and is left without the appropriate language or technology express their ideas, and a society that is unwilling to accept it.

Additionally, I see a little bit of Emerson’s Nature through Douglass’ narrative:
“The one thing in the world of value is the active soul,—the soul, free, sovereign, active. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates.”

This brings me back to the question brought up in class about why Emerson never addressed the issue of slavery in any of his essays, which were advocating quite passionately for the freedom of the soul and “self-reliance”. I feel like he was afraid to face the controversy head-on and so decided to stick to more abstract measures.

I did get a bit lost at the end as everything began moving so fast following Douglass’ escape. From Mr. and Mrs. Johnson to his wife Anna Murray, which I don’t think was mentioned before in any of the previous chapters. I was also surprised that Douglass let Johnson choose his name rather than his wife, because I thought Anna Murray was the one who helped him choose the name Douglass.