WINNER2002 NEMLAGRADUATE STUDENT CAUCUS PRIZE The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric: Freedomand Trauma in TheLife ofOlaudah Equiano

Ide Corley1

Bymeans of signifiers,language performs the plenitudeonce experienced but nowinaccessible to consciousness. ClaudiaTate

Introduction:A CriticalImpasse The InterestingNarrative of the Lifeof OlaudahEquiano, or GustavusVasa, the Af- rican (1789)includes an account of the abduction and transportationfrom West Africato the Americasof a formerslave "written by himself."As a unique historical artifactof the abolition movement,the autobiographycontinues to garnerconsid- erablecritical attention. But, despite the self-authenticatingtactics of the subtitle, an apparentsplit in the narrativevoice raisesquestions of authorialintention and control.Critics have answeredthese by celebratingthe text'sdisruption of Western modes of thinking, of binarydistinctions between epistemologicalcategories such as blackand white, or civilizationand savagery.Yet nascentaspirations to represent Equianoas a visionaryor as a redemptivefigure of modernityare prohibited by his apparentacquiescence to Enlightenmentreason and the principles of free trade,

I wouldlike to thankBarbara Rodriguez for her attentive and detailed comments on ear- lierdrafts of this essay,and also Lee Edelman for helpreading Lacanian psychoanalytic theory.

Modern Language Studies 32.2 ?NortheastModern Language Association 140 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

his submissionto the judicialprocesses of the earlycapitalist state and his evangel- ical impulses.Subsequently, the question posed by Wilfred D. Samuel'sin 1985- "What,in the final analysis,did Equiano intend?"(66)-continues to preoccupy critics.It was most recentlyforegrounded by KatalinOrban in 1993:"The problem is one of authorialintention," Orban asserts; is the over-arching"enlightened" dis- courseof the text "to be takenat facevalue," he asks, "or is it just a cover for smug- gling dangerousideas into the heads of unsympatheticreaders?" (657). Within this interrogativeframe, the semanticpossibilities of the autobiography are somewhatconstrained. In particular,authorial expressions of equivocationare hastily smuggled out of the text by Equiano'scritics. Criticalreadings frequently aim to eraseambiguities or to collapsenarrative contradictions into a singularline of reasoning.In orderto preemptthe potentialaccusation that Equianowas a self- serving capitalistpreparing the ground for mercantilecolonialism, a criticaldrive to rescuehim is undertaken.Several critics, in an apologeticmode, urge the reader to accept the supposed necessitiesof the text'shistorical production. Joseph Fich- telberg, reading the persona of the author as the epitome of the principle of ex- change, explains that an accomodationistsolution was the only one historically available.Citing Equiano'sviews on the potential expansion of European trade with Africa, Fichtelbergacknowledges that Equiano'slanguage "suggest[s] the worstkind of exploitation"(475). But he reservesjudgment. "Whether Equiano in- tended such severity is beside the point," Fichtelbergasserts, because "the dis- course he adopteddemanded it" (475).In a similarmanner, Chinosole insists that a certainamount of "mentalcolonization" (50) must necessarilyhave taken place in orderto bring about the conditionswhereby Equiano could write to begin with. Alternatively,critics who oppose the apologeticargument say that Equianore- sorts to strategiesof subversionin his writing. They point to the deployment of narrativedevices that undercut the foundationalassumptions of Enlightenment discoursein relationto "blackness."Beneath the disguise of the literateEuropean, WilfredD. Samuelsargues, lies Equiano'shidden self-characterizationas a "tradi- tional Africanman" (67) or a "greattraditional warrior and title bearer"(67). For Samuels,the text instigatesa returnto an idealizedEboe identity,after Equiano's cultural dispossession by Europeanslavers.2 While also emphasizing subversive narrativetechnique, Marion Rust draws the opposite conclusion. She claims that the use of ironydestabilizes ideal identitiesproduced by Westerndiscourse. At log- gerheadswith Samuels,her readinghighlights the autobiography'sformulations of

2 The relativeaccuracy of Equiano'scomments on Eboevalues and customsis debated. Ogudefirst problematized references to Eboeculture in theLife by arguingthat Equiano, asa child,could not haveknown about some of thethings he describes,including, for ex- ample,the details of initiationceremonies. For the most recentdiscussion of Equiano's Eboecultural legacy, see Sabinoand Hall. ide Corley 141

syncreticculture and hybrid identity.Although Rust celebratesthe fact that "the text itself is a rupture"(35), she eventuallyreproduces the apologetic case with the assertionthat "it is only by becoming a successfultrader" (35) that Equiano can fi- nally articulatehis "dissatisfaction"(35) with Europeaninterventions in Africa. Within this criticalquagmire, I find it troublesomethat the political dynamics of Equiano'sevaluation in relationto his readersremain a mute point. In spite of worlds of disparitybetween the author and the reader,the readeris positioned as intellectuallyand ethicallyknowing. While criticsunderestimate Equiano's imme- diate experience of slaveryand political activism, they presume that the reader knows the effects of slavery,of racism,of mercantilecolonialism and of missionary projectson eighteenth centuryAfricans better than he. This assumption leads to the problematicportrait of Equiano as victim, either of racism or circumstance. When readersare askedto focus on the irretrievableintentions of the author, the figurativeachievement of Equiano'swriting is diminished;its self-authenticating gesturesare disappointinglyneglected.

Desire and the Protocols of Racein Equiano'sAutobiography In her interestingbook, Psychoanalysisand BlackNovels: Desire and the Protocolsof Race,Claudia Tate delineates a way of readingblack novels that can help to dissolve this critical impasse and, perhaps,to open the criticism of Equiano'sautobiogra- phy to differentkinds of readings.Tate adapts a model of textual subjectivitypro- posed by PeterBrooks in orderto demonstratehow the blackmodernist canon was shaped. Starting from the Lacanianassertion that the psyche is structured like a language, Tate examines novelistic structure in terms of conscious and uncon- scious discourses.She adopts the term "consciousdiscourse" to describe "the ex- plicit social content"of a novel "recorded,for examplein the plot, incidents, char- acterization,and dialogue"(26). In orderto be includedwithin the canon of black modernism, she contends, a novel was expected to furnish a conscious discourse of racialand social protest. ForTate, however, "unconscious discourses" in black novels frequentlydisrupt a text's conscious adoption of a political stance. She describes "unconsciousdis- course"as "a puzzling rhetoricalperformance that generatesmeaning in the novel that is external to its racial/socialargument" (13). Unconscious discourses, con- tained in narrativeelements such as "repetition,exaggeration, ellipsis, suspension, anticipation,digression, irony, coincidence" (32), prohibit an overt political read- ing and give rise to what Tate calls "surplusmeaning" (9). She maintains that in- terpretative problems brought about by the dissonance of "public collective protocols of race"(13) and "private,individual desire" (13) often account for the marginalizationof certainbooks, even those writtenby prominent, influentialau- thors such as W.E.B.Du Bois or RichardWright. When the excessivesigning of sur- 142 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

plus meaning disrupts a novel's articulation of racial and social protest, its aestheticintegrity appears to be compromised. But even though it is repletewith textual enigmas, Equiano'sautobiography cannot conceivablybe marginalizedwithin the canon of slavenarratives. Critics of the text who also frame expectationsof racial and social protest are often disap- pointed by the complex assertionsof selfhood that are articulatedthere. My ap- proach is to move beyond the search for submergedintentions to illuminate the ways in which surplusmeaning arises in TheLife ofOlaudah Equiano as a response to the contradictoryconstruction of blacksubjectivity within abolitionistrhetoric. For,in the face of a pro-slaverymovement, abolitionistrhetoric aims to erect a co- herent and reliableslave-subject as the necessaryobject of politicaldesire. Narra- tive contingenciesthat might be evoked by the irregulareffects of memory or the aporiasof desire are briefly countenancedbut never explored.Instead, reflections on identity are meticulouslychecked in favorof the stock scenes and tropes of the speakingsubject. As it advancesan importantargument against slavery, The Life of Olaudah Equiano produces a conscious and apparentlyvolitional discourse of black subjectivity.It contains within that discourse an image of "enlightened" blackness.But the attemptto speakfrom a stablepolitical position despite the lack of institutional support producesenigmatic textual postures.Passages that disaf- filiatethe voice of the speakingsubject from its "enlightenment"assertions set the text awash.The self-image is exposed as a Lacanianimago, allowing for the in- scription of "misrecognition"3in the autobiography.Equiano's narrative simulta- neously complies with the abolitionist demand and exposes its contradictory, traumaticsubtext. This paper examines the Life of OlaudahEquiano as a site where a theory of subjectivityis enacted.First, I will explore the means by which the text generatesa conscious discourse of "enlightened"blackness. Then, I will show how narrative elementsyield an unconsciousdiscourse that necessarilyweakens the evolution of the text's conscious goals. Followingthe recent trend in psychoanalyticcriticism by authors such as Claudia Tate, Judith Butler, BarbaraJohnson and Hortense Spillers,I aim to revealthe means by which the Lifeenacts a theory of the subject within a nexus of social and psychic effects of power;4by mediating the image of the "enlightened"black subject with the structuralarrangement of textual ele-

3 In "TheMirror Stage," Lacan proposes that consciousness, or the linguisticated"self," is precipitatedwhen an infantfirst examines his(her) reflection in a mirror.The infant's self-identificationis a describedby Lacanas a formof "misrecognition;"the "self"iden- tifiedis onlyan "imago"(735). While the child receives an imageof totalityfrom his per- ceptionof his imagein the mirror,this act of perceptionalso functionsto negatethe "self"by generating an imaginaryidentification with something outside of it. ForLacan, selfhoodis irreduciblyfictional. ide Corley 143

ments, Equiano'sautobiography disarticulates the Enlightenment synthesis be- tween social and psychicprocesses and questionsthe idea of the reasoningsubject.

Self Mastery and the Subject Presumed to Know Equiano'sautobiography is dividedthematically into two sections coinciding with its first publicationin two volumes in 1789.Volume one, chaptersone to seven, re- counts the author'spersonal experience of slaveryculminating in his purchaseof freedom.Volume two, chapterseight to twelve,deals with successiveintense crises of conscienceon the part of the author,eventually resolved in his conversionto the Churchof England.The emergenceof the conversionnarrative in the second vol- ume of the text provides one locus of the intense debate among critics regarding the author's sincerity.For many readers,the task of reconciling the persona of "Equiano,the entrepeneur"with "Equiano,the Christianconvert" seems impossi- ble.Yet this dissonanceis key to understandingthe texts puzzlingproduction of the "enlightened"black subject. Specifically,a sequence of doubling events in the shape of storms and dreamsforms an interlockingnarrative structure between the two volumes that providesa key to the text'sunconscious discourse. In Scenesof Subjection(1997), Saidiya Hartman provides a critical insight that allows us to read the two volumes as a diptych, articulatingparallel and mutually reinforcingthemes in relationto the autobiographicalsubject. Hartman addresses modern uses of terror,shifting the focus from grotesquescenes of human violation to the issue of civil rights. The analysis of anti-bellum violence, she maintains, tends towardsa re-enactmentof the slave'sobjectification. The question of terror is re-shaped: "[S]uppose that the recognition of human suffering held out the prospect not of liberatingthe flesh or redeemingone's sufferingbut ratherof in- tensifying it?" (5). She pursues the inquiry by examining "the ways in which the recognition of humanity and individualityacted to tether,bind and oppress"(5) during slaveryand its aftermath. Although Hartmanworks with texts written considerablylater than Equiano's and within a geographiccontext that Equiano'stext supersedes,her observations on the social condition of the freedman seem to bear relevance to his writing. Hartman maintains that, after Emancipationin the Southern states, the slaver-

4 In herwork, Spillers brings the criticaltheory of African-Americanidentity to bearon psychoanalysis.Her writing begins a processthat aims "to historicize the psychoanalytic objectand objective, invade its hereditary premises and insulations, and open its insights to culturaland social forms that are disjunctive to its originaryimperatives" (135). Both Johnson(1992) and Butlerapply psychoanalytic theory to NellaLarsen's fiction. They makesimilar arguments about the waysin whichblack textuality demonstrates that structuresof racialidentification for the individual also inform and are in turnshaped by socialand political structures. 144 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

holder'swhip was replacedby a burdenof conscienceimposed on the freedpopu- lation: "The free(d) individual was nothing if not burdened, responsible and obligated"(125), she claims.Her analysisof self-help manuals producedby white authors for former slavesenables her to expose the managementof languagethat worked to replaceexternal modes of coercive subjectionwith internal modes of ideological submission.She convincinglyshows that a new ideology of blackness was advancedin order to cultivatea population of acquisitive,servile and self-re- liant individuals:"The very bestowal of freedom establishedthe indebtednessof the freed through a calculus of blame and responsibilitythat mandated that the formerlyenslaved both repaythis investmentof faith and prove their worthiness" (125). In his autobiography,Equiano appears to respondto ideologicalpressures sim- ilar to those describedby Hartman.After he purchaseshis freedom, he communi- cates a sense of indebtednessand appreciation.Indeed, he shows how an attitude of subserviencesometimes threatensto overwhelm him; it is most apparentin a passagethat implicitly conflateshis "master,"Robert King, with "God": Thesewords of my masterwere like a voicefrom heaven to me;in an instantall my trepidationwas turnedinto unutterablebliss; and I most reverentlybowed myselfwith gratitude, unable to expressmy feelings, but by the overflowing of my eyes,and a heartreplete with thanks to God;while my true and worthy friend the captaincongratulated us bothwith a peculiardegree of heartfeltpleasure. (137) Also, while Equiano'sdescribes his response as thankfulness("I most reverently bowed myself with gratitude"),in the presence of his former master, gratitude alone is not adequate.In the passage,Equiano seems deliberatelyto place himself at a precariousdistance from the Enlightenmentmodel of reasoningman perhaps typifiedby RobertKing. He describeshimself as "unable"(137) to portrayhis emo- tions with words, crying, and unsureof his behavior.In the next sentence,he says that he comported himself "in the best manner [he] was able" (137).As the scene closes, the freed Equiano continues to comport himself in an attitude of submis- sion. His firstmovement upon being freed is presentedas an act of obedience and compliance:"I rose with heart full of affectionand reverence,and left the room in orderto obey my master'sjoyful mandateof going to the RegisterOffice" (136). Al- though Equiano'surgent execution of his master'sword is ironic, even afterhe ac- quires the certificateof manumission,his compliant demeanor does not change. Despite his wish to return to London, he still agrees to work on another voyage from Montserratto Georgiaon behalfof King;the reasonhe providesis that "grat- itude bowed [him] down"(138). When that voyageis complete, he once more con- cedes to yet anothersimilar venture-"I found myself unable to refuse [King's]re- quests"(147), he tells.The languageof obligation seems worryinglyto fail Equiano and to retardhis movement towardsequal statuswith King. Ide Corley 145

Yet, as the conversionnarrative progresses, the elevationof King to a transcen- dental position with respectto the "free"Equiano has more complex effects.Even though Equiano seems to shower King with unworldlydevotion (corroborating Hartman'sclaim that the freedslave was obligedto "repayan investmentof faith"), this same languageprepares the ground for the eventualprocess whereby Equiano replacesKing with "God"as Master,or in Lacanianterms as the SubjectPresumed to Know (sujetsuppose savoir). In TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1977),Lacan portrays the SubjectPresumed to Know as a semantic entity capable of "full speech."The phrase"full speech" describes an imaginarylinguistic action through which image and presencewould coincide, obliteratingthe function of differenceinaugurated by the symbol.Lacan proposes that a subjectis interpolated as image into the symbolic orderbecause of its attractionto the signifying lure of anotherimage. The other image,with the semblanceof a subjectwho "knows"ap- pearsto validatethe fantasyof self-presencein language.But the signifyingaction of the Subject Presumed to Know is always a masquerade.Instead, that subject constitutesno more than one of a numberof unstablesigns divided between a nar- rating"I" and a narrated"I." Even so, the pre-linguisticated"self" cannot resistthe fantasyof "full speech"and enters language.The lack of selfsamenesswithin lan- guage brings about a metonymic slide wherebythe new subject substitutesother signs in the place of the SubjectPresumed to Know alwayshoping to re-constitute the imaginaryplenitude of its pre-linguisticated"self."5 In slavelaw, the slave is constitutedas "object"rather than as "subject"of lan- guage but manumission undoes this syntacticalposition. It opens the possibility for the reconstitutionof the slave as subjectthrough the acquisition of the rights of personhood; for this reason, Equiano adopts the legal parametersof selfhood towardsan imaginaryperformance of self mastery.Through his part in Equiano's manumission,King fulfillsthe function of the SubjectPresumed to Know, initiat- ing Equiano'sentry as subjectinto the law.But the moment of manumission is not the same moment at which Equianoacquires language. After all, Equianonarrates a prior self in his account of his childhood in West Africa.Also, the obvious recog- nition of his humanity by slaveholderssuch as King and Pascal had already equippedEquiano with a languageof self within a Westernmodel, albeitan abject- ed one. Perhaps,this is why the moment of manumission seems to requireEqui- ano'ssense of obligationtowards King in his performanceof the SubjectPresumed to Know.Still, Equianomanipulates the conventionsof the conversionnarrative in orderto redirectthis burdenof obligationtowards "God." In the firstsection of his autobiography,he acquiresthe capacityto performthe function of the legal sub-

5 SeeLacan, Fundamental, 232-45. AlanSheridan translates Lacan's "sujet suppose savoir" as "subjectwho is supposedto know",but here I preferredto adoptSlavoj Zizek's trans- lationof the phraseas "SubjectPresumed to Know"from The Sublime Object of Ideology. 146 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

ject by purchasinghis freedom for seventy pounds. By means of the conversion narrative,Equiano sanctifies his performanceof legal subjectivityaccording to an Enlightenmentmodel of "fullspeech." Certainly,Equiano deploys the conversionnarrative to counterracist discourse that aims to endorse white supremacyon the basis of biology. By describinghis adoption of Christianity,Equiano aims to extend the principlesof Enlightenment to includeblack subjects. Earlier, in the firstvolume of the autobiography,Equiano also comments on the similaritiesbetween Eboe and Jewishtraditions, referring his readersto T. Clarkson's"Essay on the Slaveryand Commerce of the Human Species"especially to the point where Clarksoncites John Mitchel's"Causes of the DifferentColours of Personsin DifferentClimates."6 Drawing on the assertionsof Clarksonand Mitchel, Equianofurther contends that differencesin skin color sig- nify differencesin climatic environmentrather than intellectualinferiority or su- periority.For instance, in the case of a Portuguesesettlement at Mitomba riverin SierraLeone, he shows that "the complexionsof the same personsvary in different climates"and remarks"Surely the minds of the Spaniardsdid not change with their complexions!"(45). Ultimately, he adoptsa culturalistposition to explainob- serveddifferences in behaviorbetween slavesand their holders.Equiano ascribes "the apparentinferiority" (45) of slavesdiscerned by Europeansto their cultural dislocation:"When [the slaves]come among Europeans,they are ignorantof their language, religion, manners, and customs" (45). More importantly,he describes numerousheinous acts of torturecommitted by slaversagainst their slavesas evi- dence of the dehumanizinggoals of the institution. In addition, he comparesthe materialconditions of some Africansto those of the ancestorsof supposedly"en- lightened"Europeans: "Did Nature make [the ancestors] inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves?"he sardonicallyposes, and replies that:"Every rational mind answers,No" (45).By demonstratingthat "understand- ing is not confined to featureor colour"(45), Equianostrives to prove that under- standing rather than color is the path to dignity, where "understanding"is constitutedas a Westernmodel of knowing. Yet, as a principleof the consciousdiscourse of the Life,the term "understand- ing" finally connotes something that exceeds cultural literacy;when the word emergesin the conversionnarrative, it is imbuedwith overtonesof "faith."In Laca- nian terms,the Christianidea of "faith"might be describedas an imaginarysystem underwhich the image of self can be broughtinto being, or full presence,through

6 See Equiano44. Carettasuggests that Mitchel'sanalysis of "race"influenced Equiano considerably.He quotesMitchel's paper presented at the meetingof the RoyalSociety from3 Mayto 14June 1744. It states that people of differentraces "might very naturally be bothdescended from one andthe sameparents, as we areotherwise better assured from Scripture,that they are" (247). Ide Corley 147

language.The language that becomes central to Equiano'sdiscourse of "under- standing"is, of course, Biblical language.Significantly, his conversion to Chris- tianityfinally comes about as the resultof an acquired"understanding" of the Bible ratherthan an acquiredbelief in "God."Equiano is reading"the fourth chapterof the Acts, twelfth verse"(189) when he experiencesa vision. He describesthe vision curiously by means of another Biblicalverse: "the Lord was pleased to break in upon my soul with his brightbeams of heavenlylight; and in an instant, as it were, removingthe veil, and letting light into a dark place"(9go). Since the vision is not a personalone, Equiano'srepetition of these lines from the Book of Isaiahsuggests that he has been "enlightened"by a union with full-speaking symbols or "the Word."7It is only after Equiano has the vision that he becomes "willing to be saved"(9go). In the consciousdiscourse of the autobiography,his acquired"under- standing"of the Bible appearsto makehim presentto his freedom.Simultaneous- ly, his conversion replacesthe burden of obligation to his former master with a burdenof obligation to "God";a debit transfertakes place as Equiano "sees"what "a greatdebtor" (19o) he is to "sovereignfree grace"(19o).

Imaginary Dualism in the Storm Sequence While Equiano'sconversion to Christianityobliterates his sense of obligation to King, this Christian "understanding"nonetheless acts retroactivelyin the text. Equiano's"enlightenment" by Biblicalword follows a crisis of conscience that, in theory,should havebeen predicatedon an understandingof the Bible.This failure in the chronologicalsequence of the conversionnarrative makes the veiling of un- conscious textualdrives by consciousdiscourse conspicuous. In fact, the crisis of conscienceappears too early in the narrativeprecisely be- cause it is needed to fulfillthe transferof duty from RobertKing to "God"first sug- gested in the manumission scene. Emerging graduallybetween the end of the seventh chapter and the beginning of the eighth (the last chapter of volume one and the first chapterof volume two in the original), the crisis is concurrentwith Equiano'stwo voyagesfrom Georgiato Montserratand back requestedby King af- ter the manumission scene. These voyages are distinguishedby the great storms that attend them. In the firstvoyage, which Equianocalls his "freevoyage" (142), the captainof the ship dies. But despitethe "strongnortherly gales and rough seas" (142) that cause the drowningof the ship'scargo of cattle,Equiano succeeds in pi- loting the ship to shore at Antigua and then to Montserrat. He reports that "[m]anywere surprisedwhen they heardof my conductingthe sloop into the port,

7 Thelines repeated are Isaiah xxv.7. I am indebtedto Carettafor highlightingEquiano's deploymentof Biblicalverse in his editionof the text.Caretta cites Acts iv.12 as follows: "Neitheris theresalvation in anyother: for there is noneother name under heaven given amongmen, whereby we mustbe saved."See Caretta's notes in Equiano290. 148 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

and I now obtained a new appellation,and was called captain"(144). The epithet "captain"symbolizes not only his couragein savingthe ship but also his newly ac- quired free status as captain of his own self. After this incident, Equiano remarks that he thought his "gratitudeto Mr. King"(147) was "prettywell dischargedin bringing back his vessel safe, and deliveringhis cargo to his satisfaction"(147). That is, the account of the first "freevoyage" closes with the exonerationof Equi- ano and an expectation of his releasefrom any furtherobligation towardsKing. The second "freevoyage," which initiallyopened the second volume, is almost a repetitionof the first,like a replayof the end of last week'sepisode in a serialtele- vision drama.The route takenby the ship is the same.Although, at first,the voyage is calm, when the new captain'scarelessness causes the ship to be steeredtowards dangerousrocks, scenes of a stormy ocean are regenerated.Equiano's dialogue is- sues a warning of the disasterto come: "'Thebreakers,' said I, 'are around us, and the vessel is almost on the rock"'(149). Immediately, "the roaringof the billows" (149) and a "singleheave of the swells"(149) causes the wreck of the ship. During this second disaster,Equiano again comportshimself like a captain.He constructs a makeshiftpatch of the ship'sdamaged side, allowingit to stayafloat until the next morning. That day,while the white sailorson board get drunk, Equiano and four other men of color ("threeblack men and a Dutch Creole sailor";151) make five journeysfrom the ship to a nearbyisland in the lifeboat,thereby rescuing everyone on board.The account of the second "freevoyage" begins with a renewedsense of Equiano'sobligation to Kingbut ends by acquittinghim of such obligation for the second time. Indeed, afterthe second voyage,Equiano finally leaves King's service and embarks for England. The conversion narrativetakes preeminence at this point. Most likely,the narrativeof the two "freevoyages" aimed to convince an eigh- teenth-century,white audience that Equiano had comported himself dutifully with respectto King;he showshow he strivedto acquithimself of any legal or mor- al obligation. The account of two dreams, occurring between the two voyages, helps to reinforcethis narrativefunction. Equiano reports, "I dreamt the ship was wreckedamidst the surfs and rocks, and that I was the means of saving every one of board;and on the night followingI dreamedthe very samedream" (148). By way of illustration,in the firsttwo editions of the Life,an etchingof a ship being tossed by a storm at sea entitled "BahamaBanks" (1767) formed a frontispieceto Volume Two.A selection of Biblicalquotations was also includedwith the etching, the first of which comes from Job and reads:"Thus God speakethonce, yea twice, yet man perceivethit not. In a Dream, in a Vision of the Night, when deep sleep falleth upon Men in slumbrings upon the Bed; then he openeth the Ears of Men, and sealeththeir instruction"(144). Through the incorporationof these Biblicalverses into his text, Equiano appearsto suggestthat his two dreamswere messagesfrom a God who speakstwice in dreamsbut is ignored. Ide Corley 149

But it is also feasibleto readthe two dreamsas a Lacanian"imaginary duality," a term that BarbaraJohnson defines in the followingway: "It is characterizedby its absoluteness,its independencefrom any accidentor contingencythat might sub- vert the unity of the terms in question,whether in their opposition or in their fu- sion" ("Frame"119). Equiano's second dream exactly repeats the first; they are joined in a metaphoricrather than metonymic relation.They form what Johnson might call "aBi-Part Soul" (121), the paradoxof two halvesof the same whole, each whole in itself, each a replicaof the other and of the whole. Such a union can only be countenancedin language,for example,in the repetitionof a word.The concept of an imaginaryduality, the bi-partsoul, forms the Lacanianstructure of subjecti- fication.For Lacan,the identificationof the pre-linguisticated"self" with the im- age of the other gives rise to a third element, the subject, the fantasy of self- presence. When Equianopays no attentionto the bi-partprophecy of the doubleddream, he is struckby his first intense crisis of conscience.His imaginarysense of "self" typifiedby the epithet "captain"is profoundlydisturbed. An oath he utterson deck one evening-"Damn the vessel's bottom out" (148)-appears to be the direct cause of the crisis.But when he leaveshis duty on deck that same evening and goes to sleep, the dream recursfor a third time. This time the dream seems to approxi- mate the status of "full speech."On a historicalregister, the events it prophesizes come about-the ship is wreckedand Equianois primarilyresponsible for rescu- ing all the people on board. On a metaphysicalregister, Equiano finally hears the full-speakinggod and acquitshimself of the "sin"of his oath by coordinatingthe rescue. The sequence of events-storm, dream of storm, dream of storm, storm- forms a mirroringstructure. The third and "full-speaking"dream seems to con- dense the sequence into one representation,one storm perhapsalso renderedpic- torially in the "BahamaBanks" etching.8 Equiano becomes a savior fulfilling the bi-part and yet singularprophecy of the dream.At the end of the sequence, he re- marks,"My dream now returnedupon my mind with all its force;it was fulfilled in every part; for our dangerwas the same I had dreamt of; and I could not help looking on myself as the principal instrument in effecting our deliverance[...]" (151).The language of the dream takes priority over the earlierwords of Robert King which were only "likea voice from heaven"to Equiano.Instead, the dream's

8 Itis perhapsworth noting that in thethird edition of thenarrative published as one larger volume,the positionof the etchingwas moved to beforechapter seven, possibly corrob- oratingmy argumentthat the two chaptersform a unit-a centerpiecewithin the con- scious discourseof the narrative.In later single-volumeeditions published during Equiano'slifetime, the etching was moved back to itsoriginal place between chapters sev- en andeight. See Carreta's note 403 in Equiano279. 150 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

fulfillmenthas the effect of an incursionof imaginarylanguage into the symbolic order,something like the mythicalenactment of the "fullspeech" of a Christiande- ity, a god'svoice sounding from the heavensabove. It is viable to readthe "Bahama Banks"etching as a representationof several kinds of imaginarydualism-two storms are combined into one, two dreamsare combined into a single, full-speak- ing dream and event are amalgamated,and perhaps,also, image and text coalesce. Within this imaginarymode of reading, a union between a narratingself and a narratedself, between self-as-subjectand self-as-object,or between self and other, is countenanced.The storm sequence seems almost to suspend the linear time of the narrative.The mirroringaction of storms and dreams in Equiano'sautobiog- raphy coincides with the structuringprinciples of subjectivityas Lacanpresents them. An imaginaryidentification of textual and authorialsubjectivity is suggest- ed.

Digression and Difference in the Storm Sequence Even so, the aestheticsymmetry of the text's consciousdiscourse is disruptedby a digressionduring the second voyage.It begins afterthe ship has hit the rocks and Equianosuffers a vision of horror:"In a moment a scene of horrorpresented itself to my mind such as I neverhad conceivedor experiencedbefore. All my sins stared me in the face;and especiallyI thought that God had hurled his direfulvengeance on my guilty head for cursing the vessel on which my life depended"(149). Equi- ano rationalizeshis experienceof horroras an effect of conscience triggeredby his earliermisguided oath. But, since this crisis of conscienceis premature,the "scene of horror"seems more closely connected to the realitiesof slaveryin which he is imbricated.The experience of horror emotively foregroundsthe horrific events that follow the shipwreckon the rocks-when the undependablecaptain recogniz- es the damage caused to the ship, he gives an order to "nail down the hatches" (149), in this way trappingthe "cargo"of enslavedpeople on board and freeingup the lifeboat for the crew.Equiano's response to the captain'sorder is significantbe- cause of its conflation of slaveryand what he presentsas his "sin." Whenhe desiredthe mento naildown the hatchesI thoughtthat my sin was the causeof this, and that God wouldcharge me with these people'sblood. This thoughtrushed upon my mind that instant with such violence, that it quiteover- poweredme, and I fainted.I recoveredjust as the people were about to naildown the hatches;perceiving which, I desiredthem to stop.(149; emphasis added) If, due to a lack of "understanding,"the narratedEquiano at this point in the au- tobiographycould not have been overwhelmedby a sense of "sin" it seems more likely that conflicting identifications of self-as-subjectand self-as-slave-object, produced by the captain'sorder effectivelyto drown the slaves, causes Equiano's traumaticresponse, his loss of consciousness.The self narratedby Equianois not Ide Corley 151

"full-speaking"but intersubjective,attached to the slavesbelow deck as well as to the merchant-sailorsabove. In fact,the faintingrecalls an earlierloss of consciousnesswhen Equianois first brought on board a Europeanslave ship. During his account of his arrivalat the ship, Equiano first uses the word "black"in relationto other people: WhenI lookedaround the ship too, and saw a largefurnace of copperboiling, and a multitudeof blackpeople of everydescription chained together, every one of theircountenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longerdoubted of my fate,and, quiteoverpowered with horrorand anguish,I fell motionlesson the deckand fainted. (55; emphasis added) The connection between Equiano'sexperiences of horrorand slaveryare more ex- plicit in this early passage.The languagedemonstrates his recognition of the En- lightenmentconfiguration of "blackness"as "absence."9At the time of his enslave- ment, Equiano'sslaveholders attempt to evacuatehis body of his self. As a black self, he is figurativelypushed out of the symbolic order;he is "de-subjectivated," configuredas non-subject, as object, or as absence.The suspension of the narra- tor's metonymic movement within the symbolic order produces a hiatus in the conscious discourse of the text. Equiano falls unconscious. As a characterin his own text, he returnsto a state of psychicchaos that precedessubjectivation. While the conscious discourse of the text works to "resubjectivate"Equiano, the loss of consciousness in the second "free"voyage representsa returnof the repressedex- perience of enslavementas objectification.'0 The moment markedby the loss of consciousnessacts like a flashback.It pro- duces a syncopatedpattern of doublingthat breaksthe interlockingpairs of storms and dreams, fracturingthe imaginarydualism of the storm sequence.By evoking the reader'smemory of his past life as a slave,Equiano's second loss of conscious- ness re-introducesthe temporalityof the subjectinto the narrative.The metaphor-

9 HenryLouis Gates has carefully examined what he names"the trope of thetalking book" in the genreof slavenarrative to showhow black authors skillfully restructure their rela- tionshipto the Europeanreading of "blackness"as absence.See Gates 127-69, especially 136-37. 10 In Lacaniantheory, the subject's entry into the symbolic order initiates a movementalong a chainof signifyingobjects that act as substitutes for the imaginary plenitude of the pre- linguisticatedself. This is Lacan'srevision of the Oedipuscomplex. Equiano's language heredescribes a failureof the Oedipuscomplex, or of the processof subjectivation.His identificationwith an imaginaryother is dividedand devastated, inducing trauma. For Lacan,the ultimateobject of desireis death;it is the dumband regulatingreality that, Lacansays, "one is supposedto findagain" (Ethics 52). Equiano'sloss of consciousness mayrepresent a physicalmanifestation of the death-drive,a represseddesire for imagi- naryplenitude of death.The loss of consciousnessinduces a death-likestate. 152 The Subjectof Abolitionist Rhetoric

ical mirroringof the two dreamsand two storms are renderedas "misrecognition" and the tertiaryquality, or difference,of the "full-speaking"dream begins to un- fold. If Equiano does, in fact, save the lives of everyone on board including the slaves,as the dream predicts,he does not save the slavesfrom slavery.

Storm as an Iconography of Trauma Abolitionistrhetoric often equatesdeliverance from sin with deliverancefrom sla- very or Christiansalvation with the slave'sacquisition of freedom.Equiano's auto- biographyconforms to this rhetoricalconvention. For example, during the con- version scene, he remarksthat "[t]he worth of a soul cannot be told" (191).Here, the salvationof a soul is configuredas an event that underminesthe principle of exchangegoverning the slave'sexistence. However, the slaveholder'sapparent will- ingness to condemn his slaveto eternaldamnation belies a state of "sinfulness"or, at the very least,a lackof "understanding."From Equiano's "enlightened" perspec- tive, the supportersof slavery,those who arguablyconstitute the most criticalsec- tion of Equiano'stargeted audience, are not distinguishablefrom their slaveswho are also supposed to lack "understanding."If Equiano'sconversion makes him "willingto be saved,"then his cooperationwith slaversduring the second "free" voyage puts him in the untenableposition of condemning other souls to damna- tion, perhaps,another likely reason for the prematureemergence of the discourse of sin. The digressiondisarticulates the horrorsof slaveryand horror as a vision of sin. In doing so, it repressesthe constitutiveparadox of the text's conscious dis- course of Enlightenment.But the puzzle containedin the digressionalso generates unconscious discursiveeffects or "surplusmeaning" that dismantle the conscious or overt claims of the autobiography. During the conversionnarrative, Equiano's crisis of conscience is typicallyin- tensified when slavery and freedom become textually snarled. For example, the second incursion of conscienceinto the narrativeoccurs abruptly, mid-paragraph, directly following the account of the kidnapping in London and enslavementof John Amis. Equianoreports that, while he was trying to negotiate Amis's release, he was "understrong convictions of sin" (181)and his mind was "unaccountably disturbed"(181). Here and throughoutthe autobiography,the lived frailtyof "free" blackstatus compounds the discursiveaporia of "enlightened"blackness. Certain- ly, Equiano'scomplaints are unyieldingas he recounts the injuries committed by whites against freemen and the inadequacyof the law to preventthem: HithertoI had thoughtonly slaverydreadful; but the stateof a freeNegro ap- pearedto me nowequally so at least,and in somerespects even worse, for they livein constantalarm for their liberty, which is but nominal,for they are univer- sallyinsulted and plundered without the possibilityof redress;[...] (122) Eventslike John Amis's kidnappinghighlight the shortcomingsof the legal con- tract of manumission.As a legal process,manumission does not suspend the En- Ide Corley 153

lightenment readingof black skin as absence, or of black bodies as objects. This problem continues to destabilizethe autonomy accordedto freed slaves in print. ElizabethJane Wall Hinds observesthat Equiano'sfreedom must have been chal- lenged frequentlyto warrantthe replicationof the contractof manumission in his autobiography.She states "Asa consciousness,Equiano is legallya universalequiv- alent to other legal citizens;as a body,however, his skin announcing his standing in all circumstances,the juridicalself runs into the closed door of statutarylaw" (643).Equiano's inability to abrogatethe threatto himself and others posed by the Europeantrade in slaves, indeed his apparent need at times to co-operate with slaversin order to preservehis freedstatus, obstructshis articulationof a free self. At the end of the storm sequence,Equiano poignantly encapsulatesthis para- dox in an apostrophe.Within the conscious discourse of the text, the apostrophe performsa rite of departure,symbolically marking the end of his life as a slave: Witha lightheart I badeMontserrat farewell, and neverhad my feeton it since: andwith it I badeadieu to thesound of the cruelwhip and all otherdreadful in- strumentsof torture!adieu to theoffensive sight of theviolated chastity of thesa- blefemales, which has too oftenaccosted my eyes! adieu to oppressions(although to me lesssevere than to mostof mycountrymen!) and adieu to the angryhowl- ing dashing surfs!(164) During herdiscussion of the lyricalapostrophe, Johnson (1987)states that the male Europeantradition operatesaccording to a formulaicconvention: "I will animate you so that you will animate or re-animateme" (188).For the overt purpose of Equiano'sautobiography, this convention seems to apply.The entity addressed, the port town of Montserrat,becomes subject.The town is addressedas if it were a person, so that Equianocan bid it farewell,announcing his new status as freed- man. Henry Louis Gates has demonstratedhow Equiano deftly narrateshis first encounterswith Europeanobjects, such as watches,portraits and books, in order to show his comprehensionof Western commodity culture and of his own exist- ence as commodity-as the master'sobject to be availed of or discarded on a whim. Gates contends that, for the enslavedEquiano, commodities are endowed with subjectivityas a reflectionof the master'ssubjectivity. For example, within the context of slavery,a watch speaksto the mastertelling him how to run his day but the watch never speaksto other "objects,"including slaves." Accordingto Gates, Equianoreplicates this strategyfor understandingcommodities in the narrativeof "his own movement from slave-objectto author-subject"(157). Arguably, then, as author-subject,Equiano's apostrophe to Montserratserves to displayhis mastery by endowing an object with subjectstatus.

1"See Gates 156-57. 154 The Subjectof AbolitionistRhetoric

Yet even as the apostropheanimates otherwise static objects, it also complicates the conventionalfunction of the trope.Rather than just any subject,Montserrat is personified as Slavery-the agency responsible for the production of the self as slave-objectand for the subsequenttortures inflicted on the body and mind. The author'srelationship to the entity animatedby the figurecannot, therefore,be de- fined in simple terms. The town representsboth an object and an experience,in- deed, a life, a former self from whom he now takes his leave. So Equiano's apostrophedelivers effects that are entirelydifferent from those of the male Euro- pean traditionwhen his freedself is obliged to producethe end of his slaveself and, while doing so, to animate objectsused to objectifythe slave-the whip and other grotesque instruments of torture. As the dynamics of lyrical address become messy, the distinction between subject and object, between animate speakerand inanimate language becomes undecidable.It is unclear who animates what or where the agency of the text lies. Does Equiano as author-subject,animate or an- nihilatehis former self as slave-object?Or does the slave(-objector-subject is un- decided) animate the author-subject? As Equiano'sapostrophe closes, the focus shifts from the institution of slavery to the stormyseas of the Carribean,a more conventionalbecause apparently"nat- ural"entity-"adieu to the angryhowling dashing surfs." Perhaps, it's not surpris- ing that the figureleans towardsthe male Europeantradition at the end since the conscious discourseof the "enlightened"black subjectdepends upon the restora- tion of that tradition.Even so, Equiano'slast "adieu"resonates with nuancesof the precedingones. Since the stormy seas of the middle passageformed a context of Equiano'senslavement, even imagesof natureare implicatedin the representation of the slave as object. In Equiano'sapostrophe, it becomes impossible to separate things from the environment, people from things, objectivity from subjectivity. Storm erupts as an icon of the absenceof the subject,an icon of trauma.In the ac- count of Equiano'stwo freevoyages, an iconographyof trauma is coincidentwith Equiano'selaboration of self. As Equianonegotiates a personal and collectivehis- tory of terror against which legal freedoms take shape, his status as subject be- comes indeterminate. Traumaticrepressions accompanying the production of legal freedomsare inscribedin his writing.

Conclusion This is not to say either that the unconsciousdiscourse of trauma supersedescon- scious discoursein the text, or vice versa.Instead, both discoursesfunction simul- taneously in the narrative,concealing and revealingopposing social and psychic exigenciesof textual subjectivity.As Tatepoints out, it is important to distinguish textualsubjectivity from textualmeaning. For her, textual meaning is "anintersub- jectiveproduct of the text and the reader"while textualsubjectivity is instead"de- Ide Corley 155

pendent entirely on the languagethat constitutes the text" (25). In order to con- struct textualmeaning, the readermust engage in the process of interpretation. Equiano'sautobiography retains historical value as a literaryartifact of the ab- olition movement. But striking ambiguities continue to prohibit interpretation and to castdoubt on the conscious psychicprocesses of the narratingsubject. The criticaldoubt generatedby these ambiguitiesis in part what makesthe text call for a psychoanalyticreading. Barbara Johnson states that "[p]sychoanalysisis not the interpretationof repetition;it is the repetition of a trauma of interpretation[...] the traumaticdeferred interpretation not of an event, but as an event that never took place as such"(142). The Life of OlaudahEquiano literalizes the traumaof the interpolationof the modern blacksubject into the symbolic order as an eventthat nevertook place.

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