Oftentimes, when one is imprisoned, it is expected to  feel trapped or locked. However, Macolm X’s experience was different. During a time he was supposed to mostly feel locked in, he found a love for reading, writing and educating himself. In “Literacy Behind Bars” Malcom X describes how he felt after learning how to fluently read and write. Through his narrative, a relationship between literature and freedom is established.

After Malcom X’s experience of developing jealousy towards an inmate’s amount of knowledge, he was motivated to teach himself how to read and write. After Malcom read over the dictionary, studied the words and meanings, wrote over a million words and learned how to read rigorously, he mentioned “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.” The relationship between literature and freedom seen in his narrative suggests that once one is educated enough to understand what you’re reading, one can read whatever one likes. Also, the feeling of freedom Malcom X feels comes from being able to converse with Bimbi and read books but now actually understanding the words read. This was now a whole new world for him.

    Now that X was able to read, he felt like a different and better person. There was no better feeling than having knowledge. X states, “I have often reflected upon the new vistas opened to me.” He was filled with different views that he wasn’t before. Now he was able to explore thoughts and ideas. Also as he says, “As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to mentally alive.” His ability to read did not only obviously educate him but it changed his mental state. He was observing and analyzing things differently. Reading made X happy. Reading satisfied X. Reading made X feel free in a time he was locked away. Reading changed X’s life allowing him to become an advocate for Pan-Africanism.

Malcolm X describe his life in prison as a place where he is truly free. Many question his thoughts about prison because the general idea of prison is imprisonment the opposite of freedom. However, he describes it as a location where he can truly learn. In other words, Malcolm use his imprisonment as a way for him to study better. He was able learn more of literature then he has ever been before. He read books, wrote down words that he didn’t know and then study them to get a general idea of what these words might mean. This has brought to a question of what’s the relationship between literature and freedom? The answer to the question is that literature is a thing where people can bring out their inner-self or realize their inner-self or even learning about the current situation where you can see many possibilities that would show in the future. According to the text it states “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” This means that since Malcolm was able to read in prison, his thoughts have come alive where he is able to make decisions by himself without others telling him what to do. This shows freedom because since he was able to read and write, he’s able to make decisions for himself by critically thinking of what to do in certain situations leading into a positive outcome and a sign of relief. As a result, literature and freedom are describe as a way learning the situation, critically think the best outcome that leads to peace of mind.

I feel I understand Malcolm X’s sense of freedom though being on lock down. I say this to highlight the moments in time when I’d often hear someone say reading and becoming engulfed  in a book is like a great escape to a whole new world and into the mind of somebody else. There is also the common saying that goes, “Reading maketh a full man,” and in perusing this excerpt, proves that Malcolm X spared no effort and ensured to exhaust all his resources and avenues. In regards to freedom, Malcolm saw the potential benefit of being incarcerated because during this time he sought the opportunity to teach himself how to write, using the dictionary to learn new words, which ultimately lead him to become quite the excelled reader as well as scholar though having no formal education as such.

Malcolm spent hours upon hours reading, edifying himself, forever craving more knowledge, and it was in this period of his life he found true freedom in his literacy. He thought it a gift to be imprisoned because he felt that if he had been granted the rite of passage of going to college then he may have been sidetracked by getting caught up in the distractions of what the college lifestyle had to offer. Prison was possibly Malcolm X’s  greatest blessing in disguise. He said, “I don’t think anybody got more out of going to prison than I did. In fact, prison enabled me to study far more intensively than I would have if my life had gone differently and I had attended some college.” He further went on to say, “Where else but in a prison would I have attacked my ignorance by being able to study intensely sometimes as much as fifteen hours a day.” What I gather is that Malcolm, although faced with adversities, used his unfortunate circumstances to his advantage thus elevating himself in spite of. The real meaning of rising above and beyond.

The definition of freedom is having the power to speak, act, and do anything, without anyone or anything stopping them. Through literature, Malcolm X feels like he can accomplish the world. Literature isn’t just about reading, it’s about understanding the words and seeing how powerful they are.

When Malcolm saw how intelligent and powerful Bimbi was, he envied him and tried to match his intelligence. Malcolm hated the idea of being ignorant, so he wanted to learn how to read and write. He would spend hours reading the dictionary and writing words down. Through his motivation, he learned how to read books. Now that Malcolm understands what he is reading, he is fascinated with books. Malcolm states that reading has changed his life. “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life.” [Malcolm X]. Through reading, he feels empowered and sees the world differently. Malcolm spent the majority of his time in prison reading books and felt like he wasn’t even in prison. Malcolm states, “…never had been so truly free in my life”. He had all the time to read and have no worries about what was going on in the real world. Through Literature Malcolm was able to feel free even though he was in prison, all the books he read and the words he learned gave him this power to understand the world around him. This goes to show how literature can change the way you view something and how words can make such an impact on you.

While imprisoned, one would usually feel less free. But, the exact opposite happened to Malcolm X who felt even more free, as he states, “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life”, while he was in Charlestown Prison. There he would learn how to write by looking through the dictionary and read until the morning, getting three to four hours of sleep. Now, the question is why does he feel like he had more freedom in jail than in his actual life? Well the reasoning behind it is because in jail, he had no worries, other than the guards who would walk by his cell. He didn’t have to worry about a pet dog to feed, a job that has deadlines, or any bills that needed to be paid for. With this, he had all the free time to go through the dictionary and to read books until late at night. One thing that really stuck out was when he says, “No university would ask any student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand“. In this, he emphasizes the word “understand”. What’s important about this is the fact that he is able to understand due to the amount of time and the freedom that he has that allows him to fully take in what he is reading with efficiency. He become well learned in vocabulary and writing as well from this freedom that he has, showing this correlation between freedom and literature. It is something that is rarely done in today’s society, depending on who the person may be.

Literature is important to the people, literature is not just words put together to make a sentence, literature allows for the gain of knowledge to understand others and to understand oneself. Through literature you learn to appreciate the power that words have, you learn to empathize with characters whether that’s feeling their joy or feeling their pain. There is a sort of freedom when it comes to literature because it allows you to make the words of what you want.

While incarcerated, Malcom X once said that he “never had been so truly free in [his] life” directing this towards him being able to enjoy books and writing. When Malcom X first came into prison, he did not know how to read or write, he picked up books and would try to read them but “every book [he] picked up had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese.” He envied a fellow inmates stock of knowledge because they were able to coherently carry on a conversation and though Malcom would try to emulate him, he could not. This motivated Malcom to want to study to allow him to gain knowledge. As days passed, he read more and more, a love for learning and reading grew in him. In prison there was intense emphasis on rehabilitation so “an inmate was smiled upon if he demonstrated an unusual intense interest in books,” meaning that those like Malcom himself, carried respect from others wherever they walked. To Malcom, a whole new world had been opened to him, it was not just about being able to read or write, it was about being able to finally understand what the words meant and being able to give the words meaning. Malcom was able to open himself up, “the ability to read had awoke inside [of him] some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” The knowledge he was gaining was allowing him to get one step closer to becoming free hence why he believed he felt free while reading though he was incarcerated. His “homemade education [had given him], with every additional book that [he] read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America.” Back in Malcoms time, an educated Blackman was seen as dangerous because they were seen as a threat to the hierarchy. A person like Malcom gave his people hope and advocacy to fight against the inequities being given to them. Malcom states that in prison he was able to attack his ignorance by educating himself. Ignorance is the biggest problem in our society because it keeps us cooped up in our own worlds with very little knowledge of what is really going on, education allows for ones mind to flow freely and see what it stored beyond our own realm.