In the readings “Superman and Me,” By Sherman Alexie, “Learning to Read and Write,” by Frederick Douglass and “Allegory of the Cave,” by Plato, the characters interact with their surroundings and gain knowledge from it. By using examples from each of the readings, we will see that gaining the necessary knowledge isn’t something that is easily accessible. There are various aspects as to why one may not be able to acquire knowledge. Gaining knowledge is a valuable thing that everyone is entitled to, although sometimes there are barriers that a person must surmount in order to attain knowledge. In the first reading “Superman and Me” the character of Alexie shows us that his accessibility to knowledge wasn’t at all tough. The love and loyalty Alexie had for his dad was what allowed him to fall in love with reading books, this opened up the door to insight into a majority of materials. The limitation of not being able to read words didn’t break him; he kept on going with observing and using logic, just as he did with the paragraphs and his family and also Superman breaking down the door. Another of Alexie’s limitations was that he was a smart Indian in another country where he was expected to fail and to be naïve. Despite the fact the he was Indian like his other classmates, he was intelligent and no matter the low expectations his Indian people and non-Indian teachers had for him, he ignored them and continued to collect knowledge. This reading and “Allegory of the Cave” connect in the way that Alexie reads for the first time and the character comes out of the cave for the first time. They both gain knowledge from observing and interacting with their surroundings, Alexie is not limited to just being accepted as naïve and the character in Allegory of the Cave has his eyes opened to the many wonders of the world. Gaining knowledge wasn’t some that was going to be achieved without great effort for Frederick D