Slave Narratives, Their Status As Autobiography and As Literature Author(S): James Olney Source: Callaloo, No

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"I Was Born": Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature Author(s): James Olney Source: Callaloo, No. 20 (Winter, 1984), pp. 46-73 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2930678 . Accessed: 14/06/2011 03:45

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"I WAS BORN": SLAVE NARRATIVES, THEIR STATUS AS AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND AS LITERATURE*

by JamesOlney

Anyonewho setsabout readinga singleslave narrative,or even two or threeslave narratives,might be forgiventhe natural assumption that everysuch narrative will be, or oughtto be, a uniqueproduction; for- so would go the unconscious argument-are not slave narratives autobiography,and is not everyautobiography the unique tale, uni- quely told, of a unique life?If such a readershould proceed to take up anotherhalf dozen narratives,however (and thereis a greatlot of themfrom which to choose thehalf dozen), a sensenot of uniqueness but of overwhelmingsameness is almostcertain to be the result.And if our reader continuesthrough two or threedozen more slave narratives,still having hardly begun to broachthe whole body of material (one estimateputs the numberof extantnarratives at over six thou- sand), he is sure to come away dazed by the mererepetitiveness of it all: seldomwill he discoveranything new or differentbut only,always moreand moreof thesame. This raisesa numberof difficultquestions bothfor the student of autobiography and thestudent of Afro-American literature.Why should the narratives be so cumulativeand so invariant, so repetitiveand so much alike? Are the slave narrativesclassifiable under some larger grouping (are they history or literatureor autobiographyor polemicalwriting? and what relationshipdo these largergroupings bear to one another?);or do thenarratives represent a mutantdevelopment really different in kind fromany othermode of writingthat might initially seem to relateto themas parent,as sibl- ing,as cousin,or as some otherformal relation? What narrative mode, what mannerof story-telling,do we findin the slave narratives,and what is theplace of memoryboth in thisparticular variety of narrative and in autobiographymore generally? What is therelationship of the slave narrativesto laternarrative modes and laterthematic complexes of Afro-Americanwriting? The questionsare multipleand manifold. I proposeto come at themand to offersome tentativeanswers by first makingsome observationsabout autobiographyand itsspecial nature as a memorial,creative act; thenoutlining some of thecommon themes and nearlyinvariable conventions of slave narratives;and finallyat- temptingto determinethe place of the slave narrative1) in the spec-

*Thisessay will appear in The Slave's Narrative,ed. CharlesT. Davis and HenryLouis Gates (New York: OxfordUniv. Press, 1984). 47 trum of autobiographicalwriting, 2) in the historyof American literature,and 3) in themaking of an Afro-Americanliterary tradition. I have arguedelsewhere that there are manydifferent ways thatwe can legitimatelyunderstand the word and the act of autobiography; here,however, I want to restrictmyself to a fairlyconventional and common-senseunderstanding of autobiography.I will not attemptto define autobiographybut merely to describe a certain kind of autobiographicalperformance-not the only kind by any means but the one thatwill allow us to reflectmost clearlyon what goes on in slave narratives.For presentpurposes, then, autobiography may be understoodas a recollective/narrativeact in which the writer,from a certainpoint in his life-the present-, looks back over the events of thatlife and recountsthem in such a way as to show how thatpast historyhas led to thispresent state of being. Exercisingmemory, in orderthat he may recollectand narrate,the autobiographeris not a neutraland passive recorderbut rathera creativeand active shaper. Recollection,or memory,in this way a most creativefaculty, goes backwardso thatnarrative, its twin and counterpart,may go forward: memoryand narrationmove along thesame line onlyin reversedirec- tions.Or as in Heraclitus,the way up and theway down, theway back and theway forward,are one and thesame. When I say thatmemory is immenselycreative I do not mean thatit createsfor itself events that neveroccurred (of coursethis can happentoo, but thatis anothermat- ter). What I mean insteadis that memorycreates the significanceof eventsin discoveringthe pattern into which those events fall. And such a pattern,in the kind of autobiographywhere memory rules, will be a teleologicalone bringingus, in and throughnarration, and as it were by an inevitableprocess, to the end of all past momentswhich is the present.It is in the interplayof past and present,of presentmemory reflectingover past experienceon its way to becomingpresent being, that events are lifted out of time to be resituatednot in mere chronologicalsequence but in patternedsignificance. Paul Ricoeur,in a paper on "Narrativeand Hermeneutics,"makes thepoint in a slightlydifferent way but in a way thatallows us to sort out the place of timeand memoryboth in autobiographyin general and in theAfro-American slave narrativein particular."Poiesis," ac- cordingto Ricoeur'sanalysis, "both reflectsand resolvesthe paradox of time";and he continues:"It reflectsit to the extentthat the act of emplotmentcombines in variousproportions two temporaldimensions, one chronologicaland the othernon-chronological. The firstmay be called the episodic dimension.It characterizesthe storyas made out ofevents. The secondis theconfigurational dimension, thanks to which the plot construessignificant wholes out of scatteredevents."' In autobiographyit is memorythat, in the recollectingand retellingof 48 events,effects "emplotment"; it is memorythat, shaping the past ac- cordingto theconfiguration of thepresent, is responsiblefor "the configurationaldimension" that "construes significant wholes out of scatteredevents." It is forthis reason thatin a classic of autobiographical literaturelike Augustine's Confessions, for example, memory is notonly themode butbecomes the very subject of thewriting. I shouldimagine, however,that any readerof slave narrativesis mostimmediately struck by the almost completedominance of "the episodic dimension,"the nearlytotal lack of any "configurationaldimension," and the virtual absence of any referenceto memoryor any sense thatmemory does anythingbut make the past factsand eventsof slaveryimmediately presentto the writerand his reader. (Thus one oftengets, "I can see even now .... I can stillhear. .. .," etc.) Thereis a verygood reason forthis, but itsbeing a verygood reasondoes not alterthe consequence thatthe slave narrative,with a veryfew exceptions,tends to exhibit a highlyconventional, rigidly fixed form that bears much the same rela- tionshipto autobiographyin a fullsense as paintingby numbersbears to paintingas a creativeact. I say thereis a good reason for this,and thereis: The writerof a slave narrativefinds himself in an irresolvablytight bind as a result of the veryintention and premiseof his narrative,which is to give a pictureof "slaveryas it is." Thus it is thewriter's claim, it mustbe his claim, thathe is not emplotting,he is not fictionalizing,and he is not performingany act of poiesis (=shaping, making).To give a truepic- tureof slaveryas it it reallyis, he mustmaintain that he exercisesa clear-glass,neutral memory that is neithercreative nor faulty-indeed, if it were creativeit would be eo ipso faultyfor "creative"would be understoodby skepticalreaders as a synonymfor "lying."Thus the ex-slavenarrator is debarredfrom use of a memorythat would make anythingof his narrativebeyond or other than the purely,merely episodic,and he is deniedaccess, by thevery nature and intentof his venture,to the configurationaldimension of narrative. Of the kind of memorycentral to the act of autobiographyas I describedit earlier,Ernst Cassirer has written:"Symbolic memory is theprocess by whichman not onlyrepeats his past experiencebut also reconstructsthis experience. Imagination becomes a necessaryelement of truerecollection." In thatword "imagination," however, lies thejoker for an ex-slavewho would writethe narrativeof his life in slavery. Whatwe findAugustine doing in Book X of theConfessions-offering up a disquisitionon memorythat makes both memoryitself and the narrativethat it surroundsfully symbolic-would be inconceivablein a slave narrative.Of courseex-slaves do exercisememory in theirnarratives,but theynever talk about it as Augustinedoes, as Rousseau does, as Wordsworthdoes, as Thoreau does, as HenryJames does, as 49 a hundredother autobiographers (not to say novelistslike Proust)do. Ex-slavescannot talk about it because of the premisesaccording to which theywrite, one of those premisesbeing that thereis nothing doubtfulor mysteriousabout memory:on thecontrary, it is assumed to be a clear, unfailingrecord of eventssharp and distinctthat need only be transformedinto descriptivelanguage to become the sequen- tial narrativeof a lifein slavery.In thesame way, theex-slave writing his narrativecannot afford to put thepresent in conjunctionwith the past (again withvery rare but significantexceptions to be mentioned later)for fear that in so doing he will appear, fromthe present,to be reshapingand so distortingand falsifyingthe past. As a result,the slave narrativeis most oftena non-memorialdescription fitted to a pre- formedmold, a moldwith regular depressions here and equallyregular prominencesthere-virtually obligatory figures, scenes, turns of phrase, observances,and authentications-thatcarry over fromnarrative to narrativeand give to themas a group the species characterthat we designateby the phrase "slave narrative." What is thisspecies characterby which we may recognizea slave narrative?The mostobvious distinguishing mark is thatit is an extreme- ly mixedproduction typically including any or all of the following: an engravedportrait or photographof the subject of the narrative; authenticatingtestimonials, prefixed or postfixed;poeticepigraphs, snat- ches of poetryin thetext, poems appended; illustrationsbefore, in the middleof, or afterthe narrativeitself;2 interruptions of the narrative properby way of declamatoryaddresses to the readerand passages thatas to stylemight well come froman adventurestory, a romance, or a novel of sentiment;a bewilderingvariety of documents-letters to and fromthe narrator,bills of sale, newspaperclippings, notices of slave auctions and of escaped slaves, certificatesof marriage,of manumission,of birthand death, wills, extractsfrom legal codes- thatappear beforethe text,in the textitself, in footnotes,and in appendices;and sermonsand anti-slaveryspeeches and essays tackedon at the end to demonstratepost-narrative activities of the narrator.In pointingout the extremelymixed natureof slave narrativesone im- mediately has to acknowledge how mixed and impure classic autobiographiesare or can be also. The last threebooks of Augustine's Confessions,for example, are in a differentmode fromthe rest of the volume, and Rousseau's Confessions,which begins as a novelistic romanceand ends in a paranoid shambles,can hardlybe considered modallyconsistent and all of a piece. Or ifmention is made of thelet- tersprefatory and appendedto slave narratives,then one thinksquickly of the lettersat the divide of Franklin'sAutobiography, which have muchthe same extra-textualexistence as lettersat oppositeends of slave narratives.But all thissaid, we mustrecognize that the narrativelet- 50 tersor theappended sermons haven't the same intentionas theFranklin lettersor Augustine'sexegesis of Genesis;and further,more important, all themixed, heterogeneous, heterogeneric elements in slave narratives come to be so regular,so constant,so indispensableto the mode that theyfinally establish a set of conventions-a seriesof observancesthat become virtuallyde riguer-for slave narrativesunto themselves. The conventionsfor slave narrativeswere so early and so firmly establishedthat one can imaginea sortof masteroutline drawn from thegreat narratives and guidingthe lesser ones. Such an outlinewould look somethinglike this: A. An engravedportrait, signed by the narrator. B. A titlepage thatincludes the claim, as an integralpart of the title,"Written by Himself"(or some close variant:"Written from a statementof Facts Made by Himself";or "Writtenby a Friend,as Related to Him by BrotherJones"; etc.) C. A handfulof testimonialsand/or one or more prefacesor in- troductionswritten either by a whiteabolitionist friend of thenarrator (William Lloyd Garrison,Wendell Phillips)or by a whiteamanuen- sis/editor/authoractually responsible for the text (John Greenleaf Whit- tier,David Wilson,Louis AlexisChamerovzow), in thecourse of which prefacethe reader is told that the narrativeis a "plain, unvarnished tale"and thatnaught "has beenset down in malice,nothing exaggerated, nothingdrawn from the imagination"-indeed, the tale, it is claimed, understatesthe horrorsof slavery. D. A poetic epigraph,by preferencefrom William Cowper. E. The actual narrative: 1. a firstsentence beginning, "I was born ... ," thenspecifying a place but not a date of birth; 2. a sketchyaccount of parentage,,often involving a whitefather; 3. descriptionof a cruelmaster, mistress, or overseer,details of first observedwhipping and numeroussubsequent whippings, with women veryfrequently the victims; 4. an account of one extraordinarilystrong, hardworking slave- often"pure African"-who, because thereis no reason forit, refuses to be whipped; 5. recordof the barriersraised againstslave literacyand the over- whelmingdifficulties encountered in learningto read and write; 6. descriptionof a "Christian"slaveholder (often of one such dying in terror)and the accompanyingclaim that "Christian"slaveholders are invariablyworse than those professingno religion; 7. descriptionof theamounts and kindsof food and clothinggiven to slaves, the work requiredof them,the patternof a day, a week, a year; 51

8. account of a slave auction, of familiesbeing separated and destroyed,of distraughtmothers clinging to theirchildren as theyare tornfrom them, of slave cofflesbeing drivenSouth; 9. descriptionof patrols,of failedattempt(s) to escape, of pursuit by men and dogs; 10. descriptionof successfulattempt(s) to escape, lyingby during the day, travellingby nightguided by the NorthStar, receptionin a freestate by Quakers who offera lavish breakfastand much genial thee/thouconversation; 11. takingof a new last name (frequentlyone suggestedby a white abolitionist)to accordwith new social identityas a freeman, but reten- tion of firstname as a mark of continuityof individualidentity; 12. reflectionson slavery. F. An appendixor appendicescomposed of documentarymaterial- billsof sale, detailsof purchasefrom slavery, newspaper items-, fur- therreflections on slavery,sermons, anti-slavery speeches, poems, ap- peals to the readerfor funds and moral supportin the battleagainst slavery. About this'Master Plan forSlave Narratives"(the irony of thephras- ing being neitherunintentional nor insignificant)two observations should be made: First,that it not only describesrather loosely a great manylesser narratives but thatit also describesquite closely the greatest of themall, Narrativeof theLife of FrederickDouglass, An American Slave, Writtenby Himself,3which paradoxically transcends the slave narrativemode while being at the same time its fullest,most exact representative;Second, thatwhat is beingrecounted in thenarratives is nearlyalways therealities of theinstitution of slavery,almost never theintellectual, emotional, moral growth of thenarrator (here, as often, Douglass succeedsin beingan exceptionwithout ceasing to be thebest example:he goes beyondthe single intention of describingslavery, but he also describesit moreexactly and more convincinglythan anyone else). The lives of thenarratives are never,or almostnever, there for themselvesand fortheir own intrinsic,unique interest but nearly always in theircapacity as illustrationsof what slaveryis reallylike. Thus in one sense the narrativelives of the ex-slaveswere as much possessed and used by the abolitionistsas their actual lives had been by slaveholders.This is why JohnBrown's storyis titledSlave Life in Georgia and only subtitled"A Narrativeof the Life,Sufferings, and Escape of JohnBrown, A FugitiveSlave," and it is why CharlesBall's story (which reads like historicalfiction based on very extensive research)is called Slaveryin the UnitedStates, with the somewhat ex- tendedsubtitle "A Narrativeof theLife and Adventuresof CharlesBall, A Black Man, who lived fortyyears in Maryland,South Carolina and Georgia, as a slave, undervarious masters,and was one year in the 52 navy withCommodore Barney, during the late war. Containingan account of the mannersand usages of the plantersand slaveholdersof theSouth-a descriptionof thecondition and treatmentof theslaves, withobservations upon thestate of moralsamongst the cotton planters, and theperils and sufferingsof a fugitiveslave, who twiceescaped from the cottoncountry." The centralfocus of thesetwo, as of nearlyall thenarratives, is slavery,an institutionand an externalreality, rather thana particularand individuallife as it is knowninternally and sub- jectively.This meansthat unlike autobiography in generalthe narratives are all trainedon one and the same objective reality,they have a coherentand definedaudience, they have behindthem and guidingthem an organized group of "sponsors," and they are possessed of very specificmotives, intentions, and uses understoodby narrators,sponsors, and audiencealike: to reveal thetruth of slaveryand so to bring about its abolition. How, then,could the narrativesbe anythingbut very much like one another? Several of theconventions of slave-narrativewriting established by thistriangular relationship of narrator,audience, and sponsorsand the logicthat dictates development of thoseconventions will bear and will reward closer scrutiny.The conventionsI have in mind are both thematicand formaland theytend to turnup as oftenin theparapher- nalia surroundingthe narratives as in thenarratives themselves. I have alreadyremarked on theextra-textual letters so commonlyassociated withslave narrativesand have suggestedthat they have a differentlogic about themfrom the logic that allows or impels Franklinto include similarlyalien documentsin his autobiography;the same is trueof the signedengraved portraits or photographsso frequentlyto be foundas frontispiecesin slave narratives.The portraitand thesignature (which one mightwell find in other nineteenth-centuryautobiographical documentsbut withdifferent motivation), like the prefatoryand appended letters,the titulartag "Writtenby Himself,"and the standard opening"I was born," are intendedto attestto the real existenceof a narrator,the sense being that the statusof thenarrative will be con- tinuallycalled intodoubt, so it cannoteven begin,until the narrator's real existenceis firmlyestablished. Of coursethe argument of theslave narrativesis thatthe events narrated are factualand truthfuland that theyall reallyhappened to thenarrator, but this is a second-stageargu- ment;prior to theclaim of truthfulnessis thesimple, existential claim: "I exist."Photographs, portraits, signatures, authenticating letters all make the same claim: "This man exists."Only thencan the narrative begin.And how do mostof themactually begin? They beginwith the existentialclaim repeated."I was born" are the firstwords of Moses Roper'sNarrative, and theyare likewisethe first words of thenarratives of HenryBibb and HarrietJacobs, of HenryBox Brown4and William 53

Wells Brown,of FrederickDouglass5 and JohnThompson, of Samuel RinggoldWard and JamesW. C. Pennington,of AustinSteward and JamesRoberts, of William Green and WilliamGrimes, of LevinTilmon and PeterRandolph, of Louis Hughes and Lewis Clarke, of JohnAn- drewJackson and ThomasH. Jones,of Lewis Charlton and Noah Davis, of JamesWilliams and William Parkerand William and Ellen Craft (wherethe opening assertion is variedonly to theextent of saying,"My wife and myselfwere born").6 We can see the necessityfor thisfirst and most basic assertionon thepart of theex-slave in thecontrary situation of an autobiographer likeBenjamin Franklin. While any readerwas freeto doubtthe motives of Franklin'smemoir, no one could doubthis existence, and so Franklin beginsnot withany claimsor proofsthat he was born and now really existsbut with an explanationof why he has chosen to writesuch a documentas the one in hand. With the ex-slave,however, it was his existenceand his identity,not his reasonsfor writing, that were called into question: if the formercould be establishedthe latterwould be obviousand thesame fromone narrativeto another.Franklin cites four motivesfor writing his book (to satisfydescendants' curiosity; to offer an exampleto others;to providehimself the pleasure of relivingevents in the telling;to satisfyhis own vanity),and while one can findnar- rativesby ex-slavesthat might have in themsomething of each of these motives-JamesMars, for example, displays in part the firstof the motives,Douglass in partthe second, Josiah Henson in partthe third, and Samuel RinggoldWard in partthe fourth-the truth is thatbehind everyslave narrativethat is in any way characteristicor representative thereis the one same persistentand dominantmotivation, which is determinedby the interplayof narrator,sponsors, and audience and whichitself determines the narrative in theme,content, and form.The themeis the realityof slaveryand the necessityof abolishingit; the contentis a seriesof eventsand descriptionsthat will make thereader see and feelthe realitiesof slavery; and the formis a chronological, episodic narrativebeginning with an assertionof existenceand sur- roundedby various testimonialevidences for that assertion. In thetitle and subtitleof John Brown's narrative cited earlier-Slave Lifein Georgia:A Narrativeof theLife, Sufferings, and Escape ofJohn Brown,A FugitiveSlave-we see thatthe theme promises to be treated on two levels, as it were titularand subtitular:the social or institu- tional and the personalor individual.What typicallyhappens in the actual narratives,especially the best known and mostreliable of them, is that the social theme,the realityof slavery and the necessityof abolishingit, trifurcateson thepersonal level to become subthemesof literacy,identity, and freedomwhich, though not obviouslyand at first sightclosely related matters, nevertheless lead intoone anotherin such 54 a way thatthey end up beingaltogether interdependent and virtually indistinguishableas thematicstrands. Here, as so often,Douglass' Nar- rativeis at once thebest example, the exceptional case, and thesupreme achievement.The fulltitle of Douglass' book is itselfclassic: Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass, An American Slave, Writtenby Himself.7There is much more to the phrase "writtenby himself,"of course,than the merelaconic statementof a fact: it is literallya part of thenarrative, becoming an importantthematic element in theretell- ing of the lifewherein literacy, identity, and a sense of freedomare all acquiredsimultaneously and withoutthe first, according to Douglass, the lattertwo would neverhave been. The dual fact of literacyand identity("written" and "himself")reflects back on theterrible irony of the phrase in apposition, "An American Slave": How can both of these-"American" and "Slave"-be true?And thisin turncarries us back to the name, "FrederickDouglass," which is writtenall around thenarrative: in thetitle, on theengraved portrait, and as thelast words of the text: Sincerelyand earnestlyhoping that this littlebook may do somethingtoward throwing light on theAmerican slave system, and hasteningthe glad day of deliveranceto the millionsof my brethrenin bonds-faithfullyrelying upon the power of truth, love, and justice,for success in myhumble efforts-and solemn- ly pledgingmyself anew to thesacred cause,--I subscribemyself,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

"I subscribemyself"-I writemy selfdown in letters,I underwritemy identityand my verybeing, as indeedI have done in and all through theforegoing narrative that has broughtme to thisplace, thismoment, this state of being. The abilityto utterhis name, and more significantlyto utterit in the mysteriouscharacters on a page where it will continueto sound in silenceso longas readerscontinue to construethe characters, is what Douglass' Narrativeis about, forin thatlettered utterance is assertion of identityand in identityis freedom-freedomfrom slavery, freedom fromignorance, freedom from non-being, freedom even fromtime. WhenWendell Phillips, in a standardletter prefatory to Douglass' Nar- rative,says thatin thepast he has always avoided knowingDouglass' "real name and birthplace" because it is "still dangerous, in Massachusetts,for honest men to tell theirnames," one understands well enough what he means by "your real name" and the dangerof tellingit-"Nobody knows my name," JamesBaldwin says. And yet in a very importantway Phillipsis profoundlywrong, for Douglass had been sayinghis "real name" ever since escapingfrom slavery in 55 theway in whichhe wentabout creatingand assertinghis identityas a freeman: FrederickDouglass. In theNarrative he says his real name not when he revealsthat he "was born" FrederickBailey but when he putshis signature below hisportrait before the beginning and subscribes himselfagain afterthe end of the narrative.Douglass' name-changes and self-namingare highlyrevealing at each stage in his progress: "FrederickAugustus Washington Bailey" by the name given him by his mother,he was knownas "FrederickBailey" or simply"Fred" while growingup; he escaped fromslavery under the name "Stanley,"but when he reachedNew York took the name "FrederickJohnson." (He was marriedin New York underthat name-and gives a copy of the marriagecertificate in thetext-by theRev. J.W. C. Penningtonwho had himselfescaped fromslavery some tenyears before Douglass and who would producehis own narrativesome four years after Douglass.) Finally,in New Bedford,he foundtoo manyJohnsons and so gave to his host( one of thetoo many-Nathan Johnson)the privilege of nam- inghim, "but told him he mustnot take from me thename of 'Frederick.' I musthold on to that,to preservea senseof myidentity." Thus a new social identitybut a continuityof personal identity. In narratingthe eventsthat produced both change and continuity in his life,Douglass regularlyreflects back and forth(and here he is verymuch the exception) from the person written about to theperson writing,from a narrativeof past eventsto a presentnarrator grown out of thoseevents. In one marvellouslyrevealing passage describing thecold he sufferedfrom as a child,Douglass says, 'My feethave been so crackedwith the frost,that the pen withwhich I am writingmight be laid in thegashes." One mightbe inclinedto forgetthat it is a vastly differentperson writing from the person written about, but it is a very significantand immenselyeffective reminder to referto thewriting in- strumentas a way of realizingthe distancebetween the literate,ar- ticulatewriter and the illiterate,inarticulate subject of the writing. Douglasscould have said thatthe cold causedlesions in hisfeet a quarter of an inch across, but in choosingthe writinginstrument held at the presentmoment-"the pen with which I am writing"-by one now known to the world as FrederickDouglass, he dramatizeshow far removedhe is fromthe boy once called Fred(and other,worse names, of course)with cracks in his feetand withno moreuse fora pen than forany of theother signs and appendagesof theeducation that he had been denied and thathe would finallyacquire only withthe greatest difficultybut also withthe greatest, most telling success, as we feelin thequality of thenarrative now flowingfrom the literal and symbolic pen he holds in his hand. Here we have literacy,identity, and freedom, theomnipresent thematic trio of themost important slave narratives, all conveyedin a singlestartling image.8 56 Thereis, however,only one FrederickDouglass amongthe ex-slaves who told theirstories and the storyof slaveryin a singlenarrative, and in even the best known, most highly regarded of the other narratives-those,for example, by WilliamWells Brown, Charles Ball, HenryBibb, JosiahHenson, Solomon Northup,J. W. C. Pennington, and Moses Roper--all the conventionsare observed-conventionsof content,theme, form, and style-but theyremain just that: conven- tionsuntransformed and unredeemed.The firstthree of theseconven- tionalaspects of thenarratives are, as I have alreadysuggested, pretty clearlydetermined by therelationship between the narrator himself and thoseI have termedthe sponsors(as well as the audience) of the narrative. When the abolitionistsinvited an ex-slave to tell his storyof experiencein slaveryto an anti-slaveryconvention, and when they subsequentlysponsored the appearance of that storyin print,10they had certainclear expectations, well understoodby themselvesand well understoodby theex-slave too, about theproper content to be observed, theproper theme to be developed,and theproper form to be follow- ed. Moreover,content, theme, and formdiscovered early on an ap- propriatestyle and thatappropriate style was also the personalstyle displayedby the sponsoringabolitionists in the lettersand introduc- tionsthey provided so generouslyfor the narratives. It is not strange, of course,that the style of an introductionand thestyle of a narrative shouldbe one and thesame in thosecases whereintroduction and nar- rativewere writtenby the same person-Charles Stears writingin- troductionand narrativeof Box Brown,for example, or David Wilson writingpreface and narrativeof Solomon Northup.What is strange, perhaps,and a good deal moreinteresting, is theinstance in whichthe styleof the abolitionistintroducer carries over into a narrativethat is certifiedas "Writtenby Himself,"and thislatter instance is not nearly so isolatedas one mightinitially suppose. I want to look somewhat closelyat threevariations on stylisticinterchange that I take to repre- sentmore or less adequatelythe spectrum of possiblerelationships be- tweenprefatory style and narrativestyle, or moregenerally between sponsorand narrator:Henry Box Brown,where the prefaceand nar- rativeare bothclearly in themanner of CharlesStearns; Solomon Nor- thup, where the enigmaticalpreface and narrative,although not so clearlyas in the case of Box Brown,are neverthelessboth in themanner of David Wilson; and HenryBibb, wherethe introductionis signed by Lucius C. Matlack and theauthor's preface by HenryBibb, and wherethe narrativeis "Writtenby Himself"-but wherealso a single styleis in controlof introduction,author's preface, and narrativealike. Henry Box Brown's Narrative,we are told on the title-page,was WRITTEN FROM A STATEMENT OF FACTS MADE BY HIMSELF. WITH REMARKS UPON THE REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. BY CHARLES STEARNS. 57

Whetherit is intentionalor not,the order of theelements and thepunc- tuationof thissubtitle (with full stops afterlines two and three)make itvery unclear just what is beingclaimed about authorshipand stylistic responsibilityfor the narrative.Presumably the "remarksupon the remedyfor slavery" are by Charles Stearns(who was also, at 25 Cor- nhill,Boston, the publisher of theNarrative), but thistitle-page could well leave a readerin doubtabout theparty responsible for the stylistic mannerof thenarration. Such doubt will soon be dispelled,however, ifthe reader proceeds from Charles Stearns' "preface" to Box Brown's "narrative"to CharlesStearns' "remarks upon theremedy for slavery." The prefaceis a most poetic, most high-flown,most grandiloquent perorationthat, once crankedup, carriesright over into and through thenarrative to issue in the appended remarkswhich come to an end in a REPRESENTATION OF THE BOX in which Box Brown was transportedfrom Richmond to Philadelphia.Thus fromthe preface: "Not forthe purpose of administeringto a prurientdesire to 'hear and see some new thing,'nor to gratifyany inclinationon the part of the hero of the followingstory to be honoredby man, is thissimple and touchingnarrative of theperils of a seekerafter the 'boon of liberty,' introducedto the public eye . ... ," etc.-the sentencegoes on three timeslonger than this extract, describing as itproceeds "the horrid sufferingsof one as, in a portableprison, shut out fromthe light of heaven, and nearly deprived of its balmy air, he pursued his fearful journey. .... " As is usual in such prefaces,we are addresseddirectly by theauthor: "O reader,as you perusethis heart-rending tale, let the tearof sympathyroll freely from your eyes, and let thedeep fountains of humanfeeling, which God has implantedin thebreast of everyson and daughterof Adam, burstforth from their enclosure, until a stream shall flow therefromon to the surroundingworld, of so invigorating and purifyinga nature, as to arousefrom the 'death of the sin' of slavery, and cleanse fromthe pollutionsthereof, all with whom you may be connected."We may not be overwhelmedby thesense of thissentence but surelywe must be by its rich rhetoricalmanner. The narrativeitself, which is all firstperson and "theplain narrative of our friend,"as the prefacesays, begins in this manner: I am not about to harrowthe feelings of my readersby a ter- rificrepresentation of the untoldhorrors of thatfearful system of oppression,which for thirty-three long years entwined its snaky foldsabout my soul, as theserpent of South Americacoils itself around the formof its unfortunatevictim. It is not my purpose to descenddeeply into the dark and noisome cavernsof the hell of slavery,and drag fromtheir frightful abode thoselost spirits who haunt the souls of the poor slaves, daily and nightlywith theirfrightful presence, and with the fearfulsound of theirter- 58

rificinstruments of torture;for otherpens far abler than mine have effectuallyperformed that portion of thelabor of an exposer of the enormitiesof slavery. Sufficeit to say of thispiece of finewriting that the pen-than which therewere others far abler-was heldnot by Box Brownbut by Charles Stearnsand thatit could hardlybe furtherremoved than it is fromthe pen held by FrederickDouglass, thatpen thatcould have been laid in the gashes in his feetmade by the cold. At one point in his narrative Box Brownis made to say (afterdescribing how his brotherwas turned away froma streamwith the remark"We do not allow niggersto fish"),"Nothing daunted, however, by thisrebuff, my brotherwent to anotherplace, and was quite successfulin his undertaking,obtain- ing a plentifulsupply of thefinny tribe."" It may be thatBox Brown's storywas told from"a statementof factsmade by himself,"but after thosefacts have been dressedup in theexotic rhetorical garments provided by Charles Stearnsthere is preciouslittle of Box Brown (other thanthe representation of thebox itself)that remains in thenarrative. And indeed for every fact there are pages of self-conscious,self- gratifying,self-congratulatory philosophizing by Charles Stearns,so thatif thereis any lifehere at all it is the lifeof thatman expressed in his very own overheatedand foolishprose.12 David Wilsonis a good deal morediscreet than Charles Stearns, and the relationshipof prefaceto narrativein Twelve Years a Slave is thereforea great deal morequestionable, but also moreinteresting, than in the Narrativeof HenryBox Brown. Wilson'spreface is a page and a halflong; Northup'snarrative, with a song at the end and threeor four appendices, is threehundred thirty pages long. In the preface Wilsonsays, "Many of thestatements contained in thefollowing pages are corroboratedby abundant evidence-others rest entirelyupon Solomon'sassertion. That he has adheredstrictly to thetruth, the editor, at least, who has had an opportunityof detectingany contradiction or discrepancyin his statements,is well satisfied.He has invariably repeated the same story without deviating in the slightest particular.... "13 Now Northup'snarrative is not only a very long one but is filledwith a vast amountof circumstantialdetail, and hence it strainsa reader'scredulity somewhat to be told thathe "invariably repeatedthe same storywithout deviating in theslightest particular." Moreover,since the styleof the narrative(as I shall argue in a mo- ment)is demonstrablynot Northup'sown, we mightwell suspecta fill- ingin and fleshingout on thepart of-perhaps not the"onlie begetter" but at least-the actual authorof thenarrative. But thisis not themost interestingaspect of Wilson's performancein the prefacenor the one thatwill repay closestexamination. That comes with the conclusion of the prefacewhich reads as follows: 59

It is believedthat the following account of his [Northup's]experienceon Bayou Boeuf presentsa correctpicture of Slavery, in all itslights and shadows, as it now existsin thatlocality. Un- biased, as he conceives,by any prepossessionsor prejudices,the only object of the editorhas been to give a faithfulhistory of Solomon Northup'slife, as he receivedit fromhis lips. In theaccomplishment of thatobject, he trustshe has succeeded,not- withstandingthe numerous faults of styleand of expressionit may be found to contain. To sortout, as faras possible,what is beingasserted here we would do well to startwith the final sentence,which is relativelyeasy to understand.To acknowledgefaults in a publicationand to assume responsibilityfor them is of coursea commonplacegesture in prefaces, thoughwhy the questionof styleand expressionshould be so important in giving "a faithfulhistory" of someone's life "as . . . receiv- ed . . . fromhis lips" is not quiteclear; presumablythe virtues of style and expressionare superaddedto thefaithful history to giveit whatever literarymerits it may lay claim to, and insofaras thesefall shortthe author feels the need to acknowledgeresponsibility and apologize. Nevertheless,putting this ambiguity aside, thereis no doubtabout who is responsiblefor what in thissentence, which, if I mightreplace pro- nouns withnames, would read thus: "In the accomplishmentof that object,David Wilsontrusts that he [David Wilson]has succeeded,not- withstandingthe numerous faults of styleand of expression[for which David Wilson assumes responsibility]it may be foundby the reader to contain."The two precedingsentences, however, are altogetherim- penetrableboth in syntaxand in the assertionthey are presumably designedto make. Casting the firststatement as a passive one ("It is believed .. .") and dangling a participlein the second ("Unbias- ed . . . "), so thatwe cannot know in eithercase to whom the state- mentshould be attached,Wilson succeeds in obscuringentirely the authoritybeing claimed for the narrative.14It would take too much space to analyzethe syntax, the psychology (one might,however, glance at the familiaruse of Northup'sgiven name), and the sense of these affirmations,but I would challengeanyone to diagram the second sentence("Unbiased . . . ") with any assurance at all. As to the narrativeto whichthese prefatory sentences refer: When we get a sentencelike this one describingNorthup's going into a swamp-"My midnightintrusion had awakened the featheredtribes [nearrelatives of the'finny tribe' of Box Brown/CharlesSteams], which seemedto throngthe morass in hundredsof thousands,and theirgar- rulousthroats poured forth such multitudinous sounds-there was such a flutteringof wings-such sullenplunges in thewater all aroundme- that I was affrightedand appalled" (p. 141)-when we get such a 60 sentencewe may thinkit prettyfine writing and awfullyliterary, but thefine writer is clearlyDavid Wilson ratherthan Solomon Northup. Perhapsa betterinstance of thewhite amanuensis/sentimental novelist layinghis mannered style over the faithful history as receivedfrom Nor- thup'slips is to be foundin thisdescription of a Christmascelebration wherea huge meal was providedby one slaveholderfor slaves from surroundingplantations: "They seat themselvesat the rustictable- themales on one side,the females on theother. The twobetween whom theremay have been an exchangeof tenderness,invariably manage to sitopposite; for the omnipresent Cupid disdainsnot to hurlhis arrows into the simplehearts of slaves" (p. 215). The entirepassage should be consultedto get the full effectof Wilson's stylisticextravagances when he pulls the stops out, but any readershould be forgivenwho declinesto believethat this last clause, withits reference to "thesimple heartsof slaves"and itsself-conscious, inverted syntax ("disdains not"), was writtenby someone who had recentlybeen in slaveryfor twelve years."Red," we are toldby Wilson'sNorthup, "is decidedlythe favorite color amongthe enslaved damsels of myacquaintance. If a red ribbon does notencircle the neck, you willbe certainto findall thehair of their wooly heads tied up withred stringsof one sortor another"(p. 214). In the light of passages like these, David Wilson's apology for "numerousfaults of styleand of expression"takes on all sortsof in- terestingnew meaning.The rustictable, the omnipresentCupid, the simplehearts of slaves, and thewoolly heads of enslaveddamsels, like thefinny and featheredtribes, might come fromany sentimentalnovel of the nineteenthcentury-one, say, by HarrietBeecher Stowe; and so it comes as no great surpriseto read on the dedicationpage the following:"To HarrietBeecher Stowe: Whose Name, Throughoutthe World,Is Identifiedwith the Great Reform: This Narrative,Affording AnotherKey to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Is RespectfullyDedicated." While not surprising,given the style of thenarrative, this dedication does lit- tle to clarifythe authority that we are asked to discoverin and behind the narrative,and the dedication,like the pervasivestyle, calls into seriousquestion the statusof Twelve Years a Slave as autobiography and/or literature.15 For HenryBibb's narrative Lucius C. Matlack suppliedan introduction in a mightypoetic vein in whichhe reflectson the paradox that out of thehorrors of slaveryhave come some beautifulnarrative pro- ductions. "Gushingfountains of poetic thought,have startedfrom beneaththe rod of violence,that will long continue to slake thefeverish thirstof humanityoutraged, until swelling to a flood it shall rushwith wastingviolence over theill-gotten heritage of theoppressor. Startling incidentsauthenticated, far excelling fiction in theirtouching pathos, fromthe pen of self-emancipatedslaves, do now exhibitslavery in such 61 revoltingaspects, as to secure the execrationsof all good men, and become a monumentmore enduring than marble, in testimonystrong as sacredwrit against it."16 The pictureMatlack presentsof an outraged humanitywith a feverishthirst for gushing fountains started up by therod ofviolence is a peculiarone and one thatseems, psychologically speaking, not very healthy. At any rate, the narrativeto which Matlack'sobservations have immediatereference was, as he says,from the pen of a self-emancipatedslave (self-emancipatedseveral times), and it does indeedcontain startling incidents with much touching pathos about them;but the reallycurious thing about Bibb's narrativeis that it displaysmuch the same florid,sentimental, declamatory rhetoric as we findin ghostwrittenor as-told-tonarratives and also in prefaces such as those by Charles Stearns,Louis Alexis Chamerovzow, and LuciusMatlack himself.Consider the account Bibb gives of his court- shipand marriage.Having determinedby a hundredsigns that Malin- da loved himeven as he loved her-"I could read it by heralways giving me the preferenceof her company; by her pressinginvitations to visit even in opposition to her mother'swill. I could read it in the languageof herbright and sparklingeye, penciledby theunchangable fingerof nature,that spake but could not lie" (pp. 34-35)-Bibb decid- ed to speak and so, as he says, "broached the subject of marriage": I said, "I neverwill give my heartnor hand to any girlin marriage,until I firstknow her sentiments upon theall-important sub- jects of Religionand Liberty.No matterhow well I mightlove her,nor how greatthe sacrificein carryingout theseGod-given principles.And I here pledge myselffrom this course never to be shakenwhile a singlepulsation of my heartshall continueto throbfor Liberty." And did his "dear girl"funk the challengethus proposed by Bibb? Far from it-if anythingshe proved more high-mindedthan Bibb himself. Withthis idea Malinda appeared to be well pleased, and with a smileshe looked me in the face and said, "I have long enter- tained the same views, and this has been one of the greatest reasonswhy I have notfelt inclined to enterthe married state while a slave; I have always felta desireto be free;I have long cherish- ed a hope thatI shouldyet be free,either by purchaseor running away. In regardto thesubject of Religion,I have always feltthat it was a good thing,and somethingthat I would seek forat some futureperiod." It is all to thegood, of course,that no one has everspoken or could everspeak as Bibb and his beloved are said to have done-no one, that is, outsidea bad, sentimentalnovel of date c. 1849.17Though actually writtenby Bibb, thenarrative, for style and tone,might as well have 62 been the productof the pen of Lucius Matlack. But the combination of the sentimentalrhetoric of whitefiction and whitepreface-writing witha realisticpresentation of thefacts of slavery,all paradingunder the banner of an authentic-and authenticated-personalnarrative, producessomething that is neitherfish nor fowl. A textlike Bibb's is committedto two conventionalforms, the slave narrativeand thenovel of sentiment,and caughtby both it is unable to transcendeither. Nor is thereason far to seek:the sensibility that produced Uncle Tom's Cabin was closelyallied to theabolitionist sensibility that sponsored the slave narrativesand largely determinedthe formthey should take. The master-slaverelationship might go undergroundor it mightbe turned inside out but it was not easily done away with. Consider one small but recurrentand tellingdetail in the relationship of whitesponsor to black narrator.John Brown's narrative, we are told by Louis Alexis Chamerovzow,the "Editor" (actually author) of Slave Life in Georgia, is "a plain, unvarnishedtale of real Slave- life";Edwin Scrantom, in hisletter "recommendatory," writes to Austin Stewardof his Twenty-TwoYears a Slave and FortyYears a Freeman, "Let its plain, unvarnishedtale be sent out, and the storyof Slavery and its abominations,again be told by one who has feltin his own personits scorpion lash, and theweight of itsgrinding heel"; the preface writer("W. M. S.") forExperience of a Slave in South Carolina calls it "the unvarnished,but ower truetale of JohnAndrew Jackson, the escapedCarolinian slave"; JohnGreenleaf Whittier, apparently the dupe ofhis "ex-slave,"says of The Narrativeof James Williams, "The follow- ingpages containthe simple and unvarnishedstory of an AMERICAN SLAVE"; RobertHurnard tells us that he was determinedto receive and transmitSolomon Bayley'sNarrative "in his own simple,unvarnished style"; and HarrietTubman too is given the "unvarnished" honorificby Sarah Bradfordin herpreface to Scenes in theLife of Har- rietTubman: "It is proposed in thislittle book to give a plain and un- varnishedaccount of some scenesand adventuresin thelife of a woman who, thoughone of earth'slowly ones, and of dark-huedskin, has shownan amountof heroism in hercharacter rarely possessed by those of any stationin life."The factthat the varnish is laid on verythickly indeed in several of these(Brown, Jackson, and Williams,for example) is perhapsinteresting, but it is not theessential point, which is to be found in the repeated use of just this word-"unvarnished"-to describeall thesetales. The OxfordEnglish Dictionary will tell us (which we shouldhave surmisedanyway) that Othello, another figure of "dark- hued skin"but vastlyheroic character, first used theword "unvarnished"-"I will a round unvarnish'dtale deliver/Of my whole courseof love"; and that,at least so faras theOED recordgoes, theword does notturn up againuntil Burke used it in 1780,some 175 yearslater ("This 63 is a true,unvarnished, undisguised state of the affair").I doubt that anyonewould imaginethat white editors/amanuenses had an obscure passage fromBurke in theback of theircollective mind-or deep down in thatmind-when theyrepeatedly used thisword to characterizethe narrativeof theirex-slaves. No, it was certainlya Shakespeareanhero theywere unconsciously evoking, and not justany Shakespeareanhero but always Othello, the Noble Moor. Various narratorsof documents"written by himself"apologize for theirlack of grace or styleor writingability, and again various nar- ratorssay that theirsare simple,factual, realistic presentations; but no ex-slavethat I have foundwho writeshis own storycalls it an "unvarnished"tale: the phrase is specificto white editors,amanuenses, writers,and authenticators.Moreover, to turnthe matter around, when an ex-slavemakes an allusionto Shakespeare(which is naturallya very infrequentoccurrence) to suggestsomething about his situationor im- plysomething of his character, the allusion is neverto Othello.Frederick Douglass, forexample, describing all theimagined horrors that might overtakehim and his fellowsshould theytry to escape, writes,"I say, thispicture sometimes appalled us, and made us: 'ratherbear those ills we had, Than flyto others,that we knew not of."'

Thus it was in the light of Hamlet's experienceand characterthat Douglass saw his own, not in the lightof Othello's experienceand character.Not so WilliamLloyd Garrison,however, who says in the prefaceto Douglass' Narrative,"I am confidentthat it is essentially truein all its statements;that nothinghas been set down in malice, nothingexaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination .... "18We can be sure that it is entirelyunconscious, this regularallusion to Othello,but it says muchabout thepsychological relationship of white patronto black narratorthat the former should invariablysee thelat- ter not as Hamlet, not as Lear, not as Antony, or any other Shakespeareanhero but always and only as Othello. When you shall these unluckydeeds relate, Speak of themas theyare. Nothingextenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'din the extreme....

The Moor, Shakespeare'sor Garrison's,was noble, certainly,but he was also a creatureof unreliablecharacter and irrationalpassion-such, at least,seems to have beenthe logic of theabolitionists' attitude toward 64 theirex-slave speakers and narrators-and it was just as well for the whitesponsor to keep him, if possible, on a prettyshort leash. Thus it was thatthe Garrisonians-though not Garrisonhimself-were op- posed to the idea (and let theiropposition be known) that Douglass and WilliamWells Brown should secure themselves against the Fugitive Slave Law by purchasingtheir freedom from ex-masters; and because it mightharm their cause the Garrisoniansattempted also to prevent WilliamWells Brownfrom dissolving his marriage.The reactionfrom the Garrisoniansand fromGarrison himself when Douglass insisted on goinghis own way anyhowwas both excessiveand revealing,sug- gestingthat for them the Moor had ceased to be noble while still,un- fortunately,remaining a Moor. My Bondage and My Freedom,Gar- rison wrote, "in its second portion,is reekingwith the virus of personal malignitytowards Wendell Phillips, myself, and theold organiza- tionistsgenerally, and fullof ingratitudeand basenesstowards as true and disinterestedfriends as any man ever yet had upon earth."19 That thissimply is not trueof My Bondage and My Freedomis almost of secondaryinterest to what the words I have italicizedreveal of Gar- rison'sattitude toward his ex-slave and the unconsciouspsychology of betrayed,outraged proprietorship lying behind it. And when Gar- rison wrote to his wife that Douglass' conduct "has been impulsive, inconsiderateand highlyinconsistent" and to Samuel J. May that Douglass himselfwas "destituteof everyprinciple of honor,ungrateful to thelast degreeand malevolentin spirit,"20the picture is prettyclear: forGarrison, Douglass had becomeOthello gone wrong,Othello with all his dark-huedskin, his impulsivenessand passion but none of his nobilityof heroism. The relationshipof sponsorto narratordid notmuch affect Douglass' own Narrative:he was capable of writinghis storywithout asking the Garrisonians'leave or requiringtheir guidance. But Douglass was an extraordinaryman and an altogetherexceptional writer, and othernar- rativesby ex-slaves,even thoseentirely "Written by Himself,"scarce- ly rise above the level of the preformed,imposed and accepted conventional.Of thenarratives that Charles Nichols judges to have been writtenwithout the help of an editor-those by "FrederickDouglass, William Wells Brown, JamesW. C. Pennington,Samuel Ringgold Ward, Austin Steward and perhaps Henry Bibb"21-none but Douglass' has any genuineappeal in itself,apart fromthe testimony it mightprovide about slavery,or any real claimto literarymerit. And when we go beyond thisbare handfulof narrativesto considerthose writtenunder immediate abolitionist guidance and control,we find, as we mightwell expect,even less of individualdistinction or distinc- tivenessas the narratorsshow themselvesmore or less contentto re- main slaves to a prescribed,conventional, and imposed form; or 65 perhapsit would be moreprecise to say thatthey were captiveto the abolitionistintentions and so the question of theirbeing contentor otherwisehardly entered in. Justas thetriangular relationship embracing sponsor,audience, and ex-slavemade ofthe latter something other than an entirelyfree creator in the tellingof his lifestory, so also it made of thenarrative produced (always keeping the exceptional case in mind) somethingother than autobiographyin any fullsense and something otherthan literaturein any reasonableunderstanding of thatterm as an act of creativeimagination. An autobiographyor a piece of im- aginativeliterature may of course observecertain conventions, but it cannot be only, merelyconventional without ceasing to be satisfac- toryas eitherautobiography or literature,and thatis thecase, I should say, with all the slave narrativesexcept the great one by Frederick Douglass. But here a most interestingparadox arises. While we may say that theslave narrativesdo notqualify as eitherautobiography or literature, and whilewe may argue,against John Bayliss and GilbertOsofsky and others,that they have no real place in AmericanLiterature (just as we mightargue, and on thesame grounds,against Ellen Moers thatUncle Tom's Cabin is not a greatAmerican novel), yet the undeniablefact is thatthe Afro-American literary tradition takes its start, in themecer- tainlybut also oftenin contentand form,from the slave narratives. RichardWright's Black Boy, which many readers (myselfincluded) would take to be his supremeachievement as a creativewriter, provides theperfect case in point,though a hostof otherscould be adduc- ed thatwould be nearlyas exemplary(DuBois' variousautobiographical works; Johnson'sAutobiography of an Ex-ColouredMan; Baldwin's autobiographicalfiction and essays; Ellison's InvisibleMan; Gaines' Autobiographyof Miss JanePittman; Maya Angelou'swriting; etc.). In effect,Wright looks back to slave narrativesat the same timethat he projectsdevelopments that would occur in Afro-Americanwriting afterBlack Boy (publishedin 1945). Thematically,Black Boy reenacts both the general,objective portrayal of the realitiesof slaveryas an institution(transmuted to what Wrightcalls "The Ethicsof LivingJim Crow" in thelittle piece thatlies behindBlack Boy) and also thepar- ticular,individual complex of literacy-identity-freedomthat we find at the thematiccenter of all of the most importantslave narratives. In contentand formas well Black Boy repeats,mutatis mutandis, much of thegeneral plan givenearlier in thisessay describing the typical slave narrative:Wright, like theex-slave, after a moreor less chronological, episodic account of the conditionsof slavery/JimCrow, includinga particularlyvivid descriptionof the difficultyor near impossibility- but also theinescapable necessity-of attaining full literacy, tells how he escaped fromsouthern bondage, fleeingtoward what he imagined 66 would be freedom,a new identity,and theopportunity to exercisehis hard-wonliteracy in a northern,free-state city. That he did not find exactlywhat he expectedin Chicago and New York changesnothing about Black Boy itself:neither did Douglass findeverything he an- ticipatedor desiredin theNorth, but thatpersonally unhappy fact in no way affectshis Narrative.Wright, impelled by a nascentsense of freedomthat grew withinhim in directproportion to his increasing literacy(particularly in thereading of realistic and naturalisticfiction), fled the world of the South, and abandoned the identitythat world had imposedupon him("I was whatthe white South called a 'nigger"'), in search of anotheridentity, the identityof a writer,precisely that writerwe know as "RichardWright." "From where in this southern darknesshad I caught a sense of freedom?"22Wright could discover only one answer to his question: "It had been only through books . . . thatI had managedto keep myselfalive in a negativelyvital way" (p. 282). It was in his abilityto construeletters and in thebare possibilityof puttinghis lifeinto writingthat Wright "caught a sense of freedom"and knew thathe mustwork out a new identity."I could submitand live thelife of a genialslave," Wrightsays, "but,"he adds, "thatwas impossible"(p. 276). It was impossiblebecause, like Douglass and otherslaves, he had arrivedat thecrossroads where the three paths of literacy,identity, freedom met, and aftersuch knowledgethere was no turningback. BlackBoy resemblesslave narrativesin manyways butin otherways it is cruciallydifferent from its predecessors and ancestors.It is of more thantrivial insignificance that Wright's narrative does not beginwith "I was born,"nor is it underthe guidance of any intentionor impulse otherthan its own, and whilehis book is largelyepisodic in structure, it is also-precisely by exerciseof symbolicmemory-"emplotted" and "configurational"in such a way as to construe"significant wholes out of scatteredevents." Ultimately, Wright freed himself from the South- at least thisis whathis narrativerecounts-and he was also fortunately free,as the ex-slavesgenerally were not, fromabolitionist control and freeto exercisethat creative memory that was peculiarlyhis. On thepenultimate page of BlackBoy Wrightsays, "I was leavingthe South to flingmyself into theunknown, to meetother situations that would perhapselicit from me otherresponses. And if I could meet enough of a differentlife, then, perhaps, gradually and slowly I mightlearn who I was, what I mightbe. I was not leavingthe South to forgetthe South,but so thatsome day I mightunderstand it, might come to know what itsrigors had done to me, to itschildren. I fledso thatthe numb- ness of my defensiveliving might thaw out and let me feelthe pain- yearslater and faraway-of whatliving in theSouth had meant."Here Wrightnot only exercisesmemory but also talks about it, reflecting 67 on its creative,therapeutic, redemptive, and liberatingcapacities. In his conclusionWright harks back to the themesand the formof the slave narratives,and at the same timehe anticipatestheme and form in a greatdeal of more recentAfro-American writing, perhaps most notablyin InvisibleMan. Black Boy is like a nexusjoining slave nar- rativesof thepast to themost fully developed literary creations of the present:through the power of symbolic memory it transformsthe earlier narrativemode into what everyonemust recognizeas imaginative, creativeliterature, both autobiography and fiction.In theirnarratives we mightsay, the ex-slavesdid thatwhich, all unknowinglyon their partand only when joined to capacitiesand possibilitiesnot available to them,led righton to the traditionof Afro-Americanliterature as we know it now.

NOTES

1ProfessorRicoeur has generouslygiven me permissionto quote fromthis unpublishedpaper. 2 I have in mindsuch illustrationsas the large drawingreproduced as frontispieceto JohnAndrew Jackson's Experience of a Slave in South Carolina (London: Passmore& Alabaster,1862), describedas a "Fac- simileof thegimlet which I used to borea hole in thedeck of thevessel"; theengraved drawing of a torturemachine reproduced on p. 47 of A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from AmericanSlavery (Philadelphia: Merrihew& Gunn, 1838); and the "REPRESENTATION OF THE BOX, 3 feet1 inch long, 2 feetwide, 2 feet6 incheshigh," in whichHenry Box Browntravelled by freight fromRichmond to Philadelphia,reproduced following the textof the Narrativeof HenryBox Brown, Who Escaped fromSlavery Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide. Writtenfrom a Statementof Facts Made by Himself.With Remarks upon the Remedyfor Slavery. By Charles Steams. (Boston: Brown & Stearns,1849). The very titleof Box Brown'sNarrative demonstrates something of themixed mode of slave narratives.On the questionof the textof Brown'snarrative see also notes 4 and 12 below. 3 Douglass' Narrativediverges from the masterplan on E4 (he was himselfthe slave who refusedto be whipped),E8 (slave auctionshap- pened not to fallwithin his experience,but he does talk of thesepara- tion of mothersand childrenand the systematicdestruction of slave families),and E10 (he refusesto tellhow he escaped because to do so would close one escape route to those stillin slavery;in the Lifeand Times of FrederickDouglass he reveals thathis escape was different fromthe conventionalone). For the purposesof the presentessay- 68 and also, I think,in general-the Narrativeof 1845 is a much more interestingand a betterbook thanDouglass' two laterautobiographical texts:My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of FrederickDouglass (1881). These lattertwo are diffuseproductions (Bondage and Freedomis threeto fourtimes longer than Narrative, Lifeand Timesfive to sixtimes longer) that dissipate the focalized energy of the Narrative in lengthyaccounts of post-slaveryactivities- abolitionistspeeches, recollections of friends,trips abroad, etc. In in- terestingways it seems to me thatthe relativeweakness of thesetwo laterbooks is analogous to a similarweakness in theextended version of Richard Wright'sautobiography published as American Hunger (orginallyconceived as part of the same textas Black Boy). 4 This is true of the version labelled "firstEnglish edition"- Narrativeof theLife of HenryBox Brown,Written by Himself(Man- chester:Lee & Glynn,1851)-but not of theearlier American edition- Narrativeof HenryBox Brown, Who Escaped fromSlavery Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide. Writtenfrom a Statementof Facts Made by Himself.With Remarks upon the Remedyfor Slavery. By Charles Steams. (Boston: Brown & Stearns,1849). On the beginning of the Americanedition see the discussionlater in thisessay, and on the relationshipbetween the two textsof Brown'snarrative see note 12 below. 5 Douglass' Narrative begins this way. Neither Bondage and Freedomnor Lifeand Timesstarts with the existentialassertion. This is one thing,though by no means theonly or themost important one, thatremoves the latter two books fromthe category of slave narrative. It is as ifby 1855 and even moreby 1881 FrederickDouglass' existence and his identitywere secureenough and sufficientlywell known that he no longerfelt the necessityof the firstand basic assertion. 6 With the exceptionof William Parker's "The Freedman'sStory" (publishedin theFebruary and March 1866 issuesof Atlantic Monthly) all thenarratives listed were separate publications. There are manymore brief"narratives"-so briefthat theyhardly warrant the title"narrative":from a singleshort paragraph to threeor fourpages in length- thatbegin with "I was born"; thereare, for example,twenty-five or thirtysuch in thecollection of BenjaminDrew publishedas The Refugee: A North-SideView of Slavery.I have not triedto multiplythe instances by citingminor examples; those listed in the textinclude the most im- portantof the narratives-Roper, Bibb, W. W. Brown, Douglass, Thompson, Ward, Pennington,Steward, Clarke, the Crafts-even JamesWilliams, though it is generallyagreed that his narrative is a fraud perpetratedon an unwittingamanuensis, John Greenleaf Whittier. In additionto those listedin the text,there are a numberof othernar- rativesthat begin with only slightvariations on the formulaictag- 69

WilliamHayden: "The subjectof thisnarrative was born";Moses Gran- dy: "My nameis Moses Grandy;I was born";Andrew Jackson: "I, An- drewJackson, was born";Elizabeth Keckley: "My lifehas beenan event- fulone. I was born"; Thomas L. Johnson:"According to information receivedfrom my mother, if the reckoning is correct,I was born... " Perhapsmore interesting than these is thevariation played by Solomon Northup,who was born a freeman in New York State and was kidnapped and sentinto slavery for twelve years; thushe commencesnot with"I was born"but with"Having been born a freeman"-as it were the participialcontingency that endows his narrativewith a special poignancyand a markeddifference from other narratives. Thereis a nice and ironicturn on the "I was born" insistencein the ratherfoolish scene in Uncle Tom's Cabin (ChapterXX) when Topsy famouslyopines that she was not made butjust "grow'd." Miss Ophelia catechizesher: " 'Wherewere you born?' 'Never was born!' persisted Topsy." Escaped slaves who hadn't Topsy's peculiarcombination of Stowe-icresignation and manic highspirits in the face of an imposed non-identity,non-existence were impelledto assertover and over, "I was born." 7 Douglass' titleis classic to the degreethat it is virtuallyrepeated by HenryBibb, changingonly thename in the formulaand inserting "Adventures,"presumably to attractspectacle-loving readers: Narrative of theLife and Adventuresof HenryBibb, An AmericanSlave, Writ- ten by Himself.Douglass' Narrativewas publishedin 1845, Bibb's in 1849. I suspectthat Bibb derivedhis titledirectly from Douglass. That ex-slaveswriting their narratives were aware of earlierproductions by fellowex-slaves (and thuswere impelledto samenessin narrativeby outrightimitation as well as by the conditionsof narrationadduced in thetext above) is made clearin thepreface to TheLife of John Thomp- son, A FugitiveSlave; ContainingHis Historyof 25 Years in Bondage, and His ProvidentialEscape. Writtenby Himself(Worcester: Publish- ed by JohnThompson, 1856), p. v: "It was suggestedto me about two yearssince, after relating to many the main factsrelative to my bondage and escape to the land of freedom,that it would be a desirable thingto put thesefacts into permanent form. I firstsought to discover what had been said by otherpartners in bondage once, but in freedom now...." With thisforewarning the reader should not be surprised to discoverthat Thompson's narrative follows the conventions of the formvery closely indeed. 8 However much Douglass changed his narrative in successive incarnations-theopening paragraph,for example, underwentcon- siderabletransformation-he chose to retainthis sentence intact. It oc- curs on p. 52 of the Narrativeof the Lifeof FrederickDouglass . . . ed. BenjaminQuarles (Cambridge,Mass., 1960); on p. 132 ofMy Bon- 70 dage and My Freedom,intro. Philip S. Foner(New York, 1969); and on p. 72 of Lifeand Times of FrederickDouglass, intro.Rayford W. Logan (New York, 1962). 9 For convenienceI have adopted thislist fromJohn F. Bayliss'introductionto Black Slave Narratives(New York, 1970), p. 18. As will be apparent,however, I do not agreewith the point Baylisswishes to make withhis list. Having quoted fromMarion Wilson Starling'sun- published dissertation,"The Black Slave Narrative: Its Place in AmericanLiterary History," to theeffect that the slave narratives,ex- cept those from Equiano and Douglass, are not generally very distinguishedas literature,Bayliss continues: "Starling is beingunfair heresince the narratives do show a diversityof interestingstyles... The leadingnarratives, such as thoseof Douglass, William Wells Brown, Ball, Bibb,Henson, Northup, Pennington, and Roperdeserve to be con- sideredfor a place in Americanliterature, a place beyond the merely historical."Since Ball's narrativewas writtenby one "Mr. Fisher"and Northup'sby David Wilson,and sinceHenson's narrative shows a good deal of thecharlantry one mightexpect from a man who billedhimself as 'The OriginalUncle Tom," itseems at besta strategicerror for Bayliss to includethem among those slave narrativessaid to show thegreatest literarydistinction. To put it anotherway, it would be neithersurpris- ingnor specially meritorious if Mr. Fisher(a whiteman), David Wilson (a whiteman), and JosiahHenson (The OriginalUncle Tom) were to display"a diversityof interestingstyles" when theirnarratives are put alongsidethose by Douglass, W. W. Brown, Bibb, Pennington,and Roper. But thereally interesting fact, as I shall arguein thetext, is that theydo not show a diversityof interestingstyles. 10Here we discoveranother minor but revealingdetail of the con- ventionestablishing itself. Just as itbecame conventional to have a signed portraitand authenticatingletters/prefaces, so it became at least semi-conventionalto have an imprintreading more or less like this: "Boston:Anti-Slavery Office, 25 Cornhill."A Cornhilladdress is given for,among others,the narratives of Douglass, WilliamWells Brown, Box Brown,Thomas Jones,Josiah Henson, Moses Grandy,and James Williams.The lastof theseis especiallyinteresting for, although it seems thathis narrativeis at least semi-fraudulent,Williams is on thispoint, as on so many others,altogether representative. 11Narrative of HenryBox Brown.... (Boston: Brown& Stears, 1849), p. 25. 12 The questionof thetext of Brown'sNarrative is a good deal more complicatedthan I have space to show, but thatcomplication rather strengthensthan invalidatesmy argumentabove. The textI analyze above was publishedin Boston in 1849. In 1851 a "firstEnglish edition"was publishedin Manchesterwith the specification"Written by 71

Himself."It would appear that in preparingthe American edition Steamsworked from a ms. copy ofwhat would be publishedtwo years later as the firstEnglish edition-or fromsome ur-textlying behind both. In any case, Stearnshas laid on theTrue AbolitionistStyle very heavily,but thereis already,in the version"Written by Himself,"a good deal of the abolitionistmanner present in diction,syntax, and tone. If thefirst English edition was reallywritten by Brownthis would makehis case parallelto thecase of HenryBibb, discussed below, where the abolitioniststyle insinuates itself into the textand takes over the styleof the writingeven when that is actually done by an ex-slave. This is not theplace forit, but therelationship between the two texts, thevariations that occur in them,and theexplanation for those varia- tions would provide the subject for an immenselyinteresting study. 13 Twelve Years a Slave: Narrativeof Solomon Northup,a Citizen of New-York,Kidnapped in WashingtonCity in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, froma Cotton PlantationNear the Red River, in Louisiana (Auburn: Derby & Miller, 1853), p. xv. Referencesin the textare to thisfirst edition. 14 I am surprisedthat Robert Stepto, in his excellentanalysis of the internalworkings of theWilson/Northup book, doesn'tmake moreof thisquestion of where to locate thereal authority of thebook. See From Behindthe Veil: A Study of Afro-AmericanNarrative (Urbana, Ill., 1979), pp. 11-16. Whetherintentionally or not,Gilbert Osofsky badly misleads readers of the book unfortunatelycalled Puttin'On Ole Massa when he fails to includethe "Editor'sPreface" by David Wilson withhis printingof TwelveYears a Slave: Narrativeof SolomonNorthup. There is nothing in Osofsky'stext to suggestthat David Wilsonor anyoneelse butNor- thuphad anythingto do with the narrative-on the contrary:"Nor- thup, Brown, and Bibb, as theirautobiographies demonstrate, were menof creativity,wisdom and talent.Each was capable of writinghis lifestory with sophistication" (Puttin' On Ole Massa [New York,1969], p. 44). Northupprecisely does not writehis lifestory, either with or withoutsophistication, and Osofskyis guiltyof badly obscuringthis fact.Osofsky's literary judgement, with two-thirds of whichI do not agree,is that"The autobiographiesof FrederickDouglass, HenryBibb, and Solomon Northupfuse imaginative style with keenness of insight. They are penetratingand self-critical,superior autobiography by any standards"(p. 10). 15 To anticipateone possible objection,I would argue thatthe case is essentiallydifferent with The Autobiographyof Malcolm X, written by Alex Haley. To put it simply,there were many thingsin common between Haley and Malcolm X; between white amanuenses/editors/authorsand ex-slaves, on the other hand, almost nothingwas shared. 72

16 Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An AmericanSlave, Writtenby Himself.With an Introductionby Lucius C. Matlack (New York: Publishedby the Author; 5 Spruce Street, 1849), p. i. Page citationsin the textare fromthis firstedition. It is a greatpity that in modernreprintings of slave narratives-the threein Osofsky'sPuttin' On Ole Massa, forexample-the illustrations in theoriginals are omitted.A modemreader misses much of theflavor of a narrativelike Bibb's when the illustrations,so fullof pathos and tendersentiment, not to mentionsome exquisitecruelty and violence, are not with the text.The two illustrationson p. 45 (captions: "Can a motherforget her sucklingchild?" and "The tendermercies of the wicked are cruel"), the one on p. 53 ("Never mind the money"),and theone on p. 81 ("My heartis almostbroken") can be takenas typical. An interestingpsychological fact about theillustrations in Bibb's narrativeis thatof the twenty-onetotal, eighteeninvolve some formof physicalcruelty, torture, or brutality.The uncaptionedillustration of p. 133 of two naked slaves on whom some infernalpunishment is be- ingpractised says muchabout (in Matlack'sphrase) the reader's feverish thirstfor gushing beautiful fountains "started from beneath the rod of violence." 17 Or 1852, the date of Uncle Tom's Cabin. HarrietBeecher Stowe recognizeda kindrednovelistic spirit when she read one (just as David Wilson/SolomonNorthup did). In 1851, when she was writingUncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe wroteto FrederickDouglass sayingthat she was seekinginformation about lifeon a cottonplantation for her novel: "I have beforeme an able paper writtenby a southernplanter in which thedetails & modus operandiare givenfrom his point of sight-I am anxiousto have some morefrom another standpoint-I wishto be able to make a picturethat shall be graphic& trueto naturein its details- Such a person as HenryBibb, if in thiscountry, might give me just thekind of informationI desire."This letteris dated July9, 1851 and has been transcribedfrom a photographiccopy reproducedin Ellen Moers, Harriet Beecher Stowe and American Literature(Hartford, Conn.: Stowe-Day Foundation,1978), p. 14. 18 Since writingthe above, I discover that in his Life and Times Douglass says of theconclusion of his abolitionistwork, "Othello's oc- cupationwas gone" (New York: Collier-Macmillan,1962, p. 373), but thisstill seems to me rathera differentmatter from the white sponsor's invariantallusion to Othelloin attestingto thetruthfulness of theblack narrator'saccount. A contemporaryreviewer of The InterestingNarrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the Africanwrote, in The GeneralMagazine and ImpartialReview (July1789), "This is 'a round unvarnishedtale' of thechequered adventures of an African .... "(see 73 appendixto vol. I of The Lifeof Olaudah Equiano, ed. Paul Edwards [London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1969]. JohnGreenleaf Whittier, though stung once in his sponsorshipof JamesWilliams' Narrative, did not shrinkfrom a second, similarven- ture,writing, in his "introductorynote" to theAutobiography of the Rev. JosiahHenson (Mrs. HarrietBeecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom") - also knownas UncleTom's Storyof His LifeFrom 1789 to 1879-"The earlylife of theauthor, as a slave, . . . proves thatin the terriblepic- turesof 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' thereis 'nothingextenuate or aught set down in malice"' (Boston: B. B. Russell & Co., 1879, p. viii). 19 Quoted by Philip S. Foner in the introductionto My Bondage and My Freedom,pp. xi-xii. 20 Both quotations fromBenjamin Quarles, "The Breach Between Douglass and Garrison,"Journal of NegroHistory, XXIII (April1938), p. 147, note 19, and p. 154. 21 The listis fromNichols' unpublished doctoral dissertation (Brown University,1948), "A Study of the Slave Narrative,"p. 9. 22 Black Boy: A Recordof Childhoodand Youth(New York, 1966), p. 282.