Slaveholders' typical attitudes, during the early 19th century, about a slave's becoming literate are expressed by Hugh Auld, the Baltimore guardian of the nine-year-old Frederick Douglass, as recalled by Douglass in his Narrative of the Life of a Slave (1845). The conflict Frederick Douglass faces, in this portion of his autobiography, is that teaching a slave to read is illegal, but that he, Frederick, wants desperately to learn to read and write. To do so, however, will catapult him into a position of being literate, which will (and did) make his life as a slave

stumbled over the ground, looking for the spot where he had buried the gun.

Yeah, here it is. . . With effort he held his eyes open; then he squeezed.

In Chekhov's short story, "The Lady with the Dog", desire also wins out over duty, in this case, the duty of both parties to an extramarital affair to remain in their unhappy marriages and cease their involvement with one another. In this story, our initial assumption, based on society's belief system, is that marriage is always good, and to be protected, and that something which threatens a marriage (e.g., adultery) is always bad. However, Anna and Gurov are both stuck in hopelessly loveless marriages. When each of them tries, unsuccessfully, to return home and to somehow be happy, while married to their respective spouses, their internal desires nevertheless win out over duty, and they find themselves back in each other's arms. It is only being with one another, against society's moral strictures (and such moral strictures were taken very seriously in 19th century middle class Russia, in ways that are hard to imaging now) that they can fulfill their desires. The ending of "The Lady withy the Dog" invites us to re-examine our assumptions about what, morally and personally, is absolutely "good" or "bad" in all cases. In terms of the conflict between duty and desire, in fact, "The Lady with the Dog" puts the lie to deeply-held social assumptions.

there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He

would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to

nothing but to obey his master -- to do as he is told to do. Learning would

discontented and unhappy [italics added]. (p. 2014)

In all three works, Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Anton Chekhov's short story "The Lady with the Dog", and Richard Wright's short story "The Man who was Almost a Man, we encounter main characters, Frederick, Gurov, Anna, and Dave, who feel conflicted about duty versus desire. The dynamics of each main character's conflict, are different, depending on what the character desires and who or what is opposing that desire. In Frederick's case, it is the law. In Gurov's

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Approximate Word count = 1514
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)