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The Nineteenth Century Character Assassination of Benjamin Franklin

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The Nineteenth Century Character Assassination of Benjamin Franklin ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN by CHARLES ROBERT DIXON A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2011 Copyright Charles Robert Dixon ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT Early in his Autobiography , Benjamin Franklin proclaims that the chief benefit of the autobiographical form is that it affords one the opportunity to replicate oneself. In his self- replication, Franklin creates an American mythos of success that shaped America’s imagined nationalist identity. Franklin’s construction of the American success hero was informed by his philosophy of tangible character-building via the traits we traditionally associate with Franklin, such as industry and frugality. Yet, one of the most evident, but perplexingly overlooked features of Franklin’s Autobiography is his extensive use of irony as a rhetorical and literary device. Franklin’s use of irony indicates an awareness that his hero was first and foremost a written creation, which infuses his narrative with a complexity that belied the matter-of-fact prescriptions for success lying on its surface. Over the course of the nineteenth century, autobiographical emulators of Franklin appropriated his narrative to suit their own purposes, ignoring or suppressing his irony in the process. These appropriations result in a fracturing of Franklin’s original character into multiple Benjamins. Franklin becomes, then, not just his own creative project, but a national creative project. This dissertation presents a lineage of Franklins created by the multiple appropriations of his story over the nineteenth century, tracking how each replication of him participates in the reshaping of the Franklinian hero into a kind of synecdoche that denies the complexity and irony present in the original sources, thus “assassinating” the original Franklinian character and, in the process, the early American concept of “character” itself. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing this dissertation has been a rich and rewarding process for me, one for which I am deeply grateful for having the opportunity to undertake. I want to thank first and foremost John Crowley for accepting my plea to direct. Under John’s direction, the conclusion of my graduate work has been just what it should have been: a profound learning experience. John’s knowledge of American literature is dazzlingly expansive, and working with him has taught me more than any amount of independent research could have. Every conversation with him is like the being in an amazing class that always leaves me inspired and motivated. Anyone who has ever utilized him as a resource undoubtedly knows all this, and anyone who hasn’t has missed out. Thanks, John. I can’t imagine that without your help the project I brought to you a few years ago as basically a couple of theories and an area of interest would have evolved into the dissertation with which I am now so happy. I also profited considerably from the help of Fred Whiting and Stephen Schneider. Fred’s deliberate offensiveness is so akin to my own that he makes me feel comfortable being the kind of academic I want to be. Furthermore, his confidence in me supplied on several occasions just the boost I needed. He also pointed me in the right directions for more contemporary research and lent much help in helping me organize my oft-scattered thoughts. Stephen has been a supportive friend who has always been willing to go above and beyond, especially over the first summer I was writing, when he often even paid for the drinks over which he provided substantive, insightful, and helpful feedback on my first rounds of drafts. iii Thanks also to Nikhil Bilwakesh and Edward Tang for serving on my committee and providing great feedback and suggestions. I would also like to extend a very special thanks to Taylor Stoehr, who, as director of my undergraduate honors thesis, helped me to start thinking like a scholar. As importantly, Taylor recognized in me a knack for teaching and allowed me to serve as a sort of unofficial TA for his American Romanticism class. This experience not only stoked my desire to be a teacher and mentor, but also showed me that I would be good at it. Thanks to the staff and my colleagues in the English department at Alabama for their support, as well as the graduate school at UA for awarding me two generous fellowships, without which I cannot imagine how I would have found the time to complete this project. Lastly, thank you to my parents, family, and friends for moral and financial support, and for your patience. iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................ iii EPIGRAPH: FROM PUFF DADDY’S “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS” .......................1 INTRODUCTION: ICON AND VILLAIN.....................................................................................2 1. BENJAMANIAD: FRANKLIN’S EMERGENCE AS AMERICAN MYTHIC HERO ..........11 a. Introduction .........................................................................................................................11 b. The Makings of Myth ..........................................................................................................13 c. Autobiography: The Form of America ...............................................................................18 d. The Tabula Rasa and the Colonial Zeitgeist .......................................................................24 2. THE HERO IN THE CULTURE: BECOMING REPRESENTATIVE AND LOSING AGENCY ...............................................................................................................................36 a. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................36 b. A Hero of His Own Times ...................................................................................................38 c. Ben Backward and Forward: Representing the Past and Creating the Future .....................44 d. Building Character, Literally ...............................................................................................48 e. Taking “Character” Public to Build a Nation ......................................................................55 f. An Early Formulation of Highbrow and Lowbrow ..............................................................60 g. Irony and Reading the Myth ................................................................................................66 3. THE ROMANTICS: FRANKLIN AS TARGET ......................................................................74 a. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................74 v b. “Rip Van Winkle” as Anti-Franklin ....................................................................................80 c. Mid-Century Culture: Issuing an Everlasting “Nay” to the Practical ..................................84 d. The Highbrow: Emerson and the Yea-sayers ......................................................................87 e. Representative Men as Franklinian ......................................................................................90 f. Melville’s Benjamin .............................................................................................................99 g. Pulled Thus Hither and Thither, How Dost One Knowest Thou, Benjamin? ....................110 4. MADE CAPITAL: DOUGLASS, FRANKLIN, AND THE MID-CENTURY MARKETPLACE ..................................................................................................................113 a. Introduction ........................................................................................................................113 b. Abolitionist Hero? ..............................................................................................................120 c. Not Quite Benjamin: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass ............................125 d. Getting Warmer: My Bondage and My Freedom Moves toward Myth .............................131 e. Frederick Benjamin: Douglass as Founding Father in The Life and Times of Frederick Douglas s ..........................................................................................................................141 f. Conclusion: Douglass’s Benjamin......................................................................................157 5. UP FROM THE SLAVE NARRATIVE: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE LAST AMERICAN HERO ..............................................................................................................160 a. Introduction ........................................................................................................................160 b. Historical Context ..............................................................................................................166 c. Who Wrote That? ...............................................................................................................167 d. Recalling Franklin: Self-making the Updated American Way ..........................................171 e. Washington as Darwinist Mythic Hero ..............................................................................176
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