In an article entitled “From Fugitive Slave to Man of Letters: The Conversion of Frederick Douglass,” Lucinda H. MacKethan writes “For the slave, however, ‘entitling’ signified a central paradox; one had to know one’s letters in order to be free, but in America, one had to be free in order to learn one’s letters. In this double bind the fugitive slave found the greatest challenge to his achievement of full human status” (56). MacKethan says this reality was emphasized for Douglass when Hugh Auld warned his wife about teaching him to read. Furthermore, the “entitling” MacKethan describes is a former slave’s process of selecting letters to represent themselves as a free person. Hence, the paradox she refers to also relates to the fact that one had to know how to read in order to assert their humanity and give themselves a free name, but one usually had to be free already in order to learn how to read.