LITR 5731:
Seminar in American Multicultural Literature: Minority
Sample
Student Research Project
Gary Pegoda
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Presentation Proposal: 14th Annual Student Conference for Research and Creative Arts
Project Title:
Assimilation and Resistance:
Do you fight or join the culture that oppresses you?
Project Abstract:
Analysis of the autobiographies of African Englishman Olaudah Equiano and African American Frederick Douglass illustrates that each of these men exercise both assimilation and resistance, with regard to the dominant culture that each man engages as a minority culture member and as a distinct individual, both before and after he attains freedom from slavery.
Featured here are studies of the ecstatic words of each man that he records as having spoken at the very moment when he achieved freedom. These words show the tremendous levels of assimilation that each of them accomplish, in terms of his dominant culture’s language, education, and religion. Furthermore, their fervent, assimilated words in fact show these two men use their assimilation to aid them in their lifelong resistance to slavery. Both their statements and life stories also absolutely demonstrate that they passionately resist their dominant cultures’ acceptance of the institution of slavery, even to the point of life or death. Biographical information will further inform these points, for both men.
Project Methodology:
Basic groundwork terminology and background are established when appropriate in delivering the contents of the presentation. Brief definitions of “assimilation” and “resistance” are given. Some descriptions of the dates, historical times, and nations in which the authors lived are also necessary, as backdrops that give the scenes of their lives context. Supporting statements from scholarly sources, as well as from additional primary source documents, provide further information and analysis.
Draft of Presentation Paper
Assimilation and Resistance:
Do you fight or join the culture that oppresses you?
Searching for voice and choice, African Englishman Olaudah Equiano (1745-97) and African American Frederick Douglass (1818-95) both assimilate and resist (i.e., join and fight, respectively) the dominant cultures around them, as described in their autobiographies: The Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). In these narratives, says Professor Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University, “the bondage of black human beings assumes a voice and a face which testify--as all classics do--in formal literary language against human bondage and oppression and on behalf of their own will to be free, black, and human” (14). Following Gates’s reasoning, the standard for their choices is that Equiano and Douglass resist that which would keep them in bondage, and they assimilate what they need to become free. Each man resists succumbing to horrifying experiences and assimilates enough of the dominant culture’s values in education, capitalism, and religion to enhance his chances for freedom. Further, these men emerge from slavery with strongly assimilated appreciations for general freedom.
Equiano’s and Douglass’s ecstatic words at achieving freedom from slavery illuminate their individual combinations of assimilation and resistance as working cooperatively; assimilated knowledge of freedom leads to confrontations with enslavement. Equiano purchases his freedom in 1766 with cash he earns, demonstrating his success at assimilating English monetary principles in order to resist enslavement. Furthermore, having assimilated English civilization and religion while resisting lifetime bondage, he speaks ecstatic words signifying his victorious resistance on gaining his freedom, yet his words remain acceptable and gracious. His words upon his last master’s ironic agreement that he in affect buy himself demonstrate assimilation and humble resistance: “These words of my master were like a voice from heaven to me, and I most reverently bowed myself with gratitude, unable to express my feelings, but by the overflowing of my eyes, and a heart replete with thanks to God” (143). Equiano’s words convey tremendous assimilation, which suggests how he achieves voice and even freedom. He speaks excellent English with conventional grammar. He uses a rhetorical device, simile (i.e., “like a voice from heaven”), along with diverse diction. He demonstrates assimilation of his captors’ beliefs when he thanks God and mentions heaven. Conversely, as will be seen, Douglass mentions not assimilated religion, but military might upon reaching freedom in the United States just before the Civil War (1861-65).
Nevertheless, in 1766, in England, considering that the anguish Equiano endures must be internalized, the dominant society’s creed, which he assimilates as an ally in his resistance, is surely present in his words as more than mirrored, superficial belief. Adam Potkay, Professor of English at the College of William and Mary, says, “Equiano's narrative presupposes as a condition of its intelligibility a world very different from, and in many ways antagonistic to, the world inhabited by many of his recent critics: his is a Christian, an oratorical, and a colonial world” (602). Explicit incorporation of faith in Equiano’s universe voices itself in his speech, character, and relations with the dominant ethnicity.
Religious assimilation in Equiano’s speech includes his showing an attitude toward his ex-owner that exhibits notable forgiveness. If his previous master’s voice sounds “like a voice from heaven” to Equiano rather than the very voice of torment, Equiano has assimilated forgiveness’s resistance to resentment. If he “bowed [him]self with gratitude,” resisting angry triumph, that shows forgiveness, as taught by his church, representing assimilated faith and attitude.
Choosing virtue and resisting anger would be taken by partakers of Equiano’s faith as clearly evidencing genuine assimilation of their faith. His captor would find himself in a moral dilemma. If he perceives denying Equiano’s earnest faith as evidencing insincerity in his own, Equiano would gain moral advantage, strengthening his application for freedom.
Further, Equiano shows resistance to brooding on indignities perpetrated upon him by people throughout his days. His assimilated beliefs and his character, given his sincerity and the depths of his distress, leave him “unable to express [his] feelings, but by the overflowing of [his] eyes,” weeping with joy rather than raging with pent-up anger, at the moment of his freedom. Just as the woman who forgives her child’s murderer is newsworthy, so too is Equiano’s forgiveness of those whom he knows have tormented him and killed countless Africans. His joy also shows an assimilated purity of heart significant in itself.
Questions of nature and nurture are unavoidable here, as at many points in the concepts of assimilation and resistance. However, as G. Michelle Collins-Sibley, Professor of English at Mount Union College, has said, “The primary impulse of these New World Africans was to belong, to stay somewhere and create there a community of belonging.” That “impulse” would obviously contribute to true assimilation, or nurture. Moreover, in terms of assimilation and resistance, even in the most skeptical view, if Equiano has not assimilated all this virtue, he has at least assimilated the knowledge that it is appropriate and helpful to articulate himself thus, to further his resistance to enslavement.
Equiano moreover demonstrates resiliency in resisting ghastly experiences he is forced to endure, as exemplified in those assimilated concepts of hope and forgiveness he expresses on becoming free. He has been literally tortured, hung up, beaten, starved, and forced to see pitiless spectacles. That he comes out expressing assimilated virtues offered by the dominant civilization is amazing. Frequently, those who undergo or witness horrors, such as he does, suffer long after, with incapacitating post violence syndromes that echo painfully throughout their lives. Yet somehow, Equiano emerges psychologically intact, having resisted such damage, and vigorously pursues a career of resisting enslavement for others. On a side note, perhaps the 1865 abolition of slavery yielded such slow results partially because many persons formerly held under enslavement suffered from post shock syndrome--albeit, such disorders were not so treatable.
Finally, with regard to Equiano’s shedding tears at his freedom, in contemporary terms of assimilation and resistance, he is in contact with his feelings. He is able to express his emotions unashamedly. Such release is vital to recovering from malicious handling, to healthy assimilation, and to resisting bitterness or internal strife from ill treatment. One could reasonably hypothesize that the balanced personality Equiano has evidenced or developed in fighting and joining the dominant culture, combined with the strength of his assimilated religion, gives him the psychological strength to come through his life in such remarkably good condition.
The strength of combining verbal and religious assimilation further shows in Equiano’s achievement of freedom. Refusing freedom justly earned by one so fully assimilated as to resemble saints of one’s own civilization in speech and values would be more difficult than refusing the appeal of one so poorly assimilated as to speak only limited English, with unfamiliar cultural values.
Assimilation of words and values for Equiano leads to a voice that English culture recognizes and his successful autobiography, which expresses his saintly, acceptable persona. This lends to the believability and acceptance of his book and to its significant influence in battling slavery, by its humanization of those previously thought less than human. Equiano’s assimilation of the skills to write a best-selling work illustrating the inhumanity of human bondage and that he dies wealthy are proofs that he does resist the psychological trauma of enslavement that probably incapacitated many. Wealth, moreover, indicates assimilation and that Equiano has freedom to write his account, demonstrates that he resists enslavement successfully.
Equiano shows his successful assimilation in a variety of ways. He joins an Arctic expedition in search of a passage there, is appointed commissary to the Sierra Leone expedition, helps found the Sons of Africa, and presents an anti-slavery petition to Queen Charlotte of England (Erera “Background”; Erera “Timeline”; Library of Congress).
Similar interplays of assimilation and resistance appear in Frederick Douglass’s chronicle. Of gaining freedom, he says, “It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate” (421). Moreover, as with Equiano, assimilation evidences itself in Douglass’s every word, although in dissimilar ways.
Douglass’s statement comes wrapped in military simile, not Equiano’s religious simile. His simile extends until his personal freedom seems a mere sidelight to the implicit demand his military references make. Douglass perfectly assimilates the dominant ethnicity’s speech and an admixture of diplomacy’s careful manners. His ecstasy over his freedom bends into statesmanlike, subtle petition for military force to resist slavery. Equiano, in an age of Romanticism, assimilated that his words of thanks would be well received, if he could find no words sufficient for freedom’s ecstasy. However, neo-classically educated Douglass finds words with political finesse (notes). Douglass shows political assimilation, too, with stoic reserve mentioning the “man-of-war” as “friendly,” and the “pirate” as the enemy. He seems to accept or ignore the legal alignments of the civilization which had kept him under involuntary servitude: the greater priority is that his simile implies sophisticated moral interpretation of the times. The “pirate”--a lawless ship seeking plunder--represents pro-slavery forces, whereas the “friendly man-of-war” represents anti-slavery forces. Further, the picture of the man-of-war, an immense sailing vessel armed to the teeth with cannon, depicts military power coming to aid those resisting enslavement, and that is one situation his book hopes to provoke.
This layered simile illustrates an assimilation of personal feelings, political alignment, military intervention, and the era’s fierce tensions. This simile also illustrates Douglass’s tougher, warlike individuality, as compared to Equiano. Nationally, the United States’s struggle over institutionalized involuntary servitude, during the times when Douglass assimilated and wrote, is much more warlike and intense than anything Equiano sees in England. Locally, in Douglass’s South, times are far more brutal within enslavement’s domain than in Equiano’s England, where forced servitude is never that strong before being declared illegal in 1772. United States courts side with slavers for decades, while passions about involuntary servitude grow until national warfare becomes the option. To resist and live, people under enslavement suffer much and have to be tough, as these decades drag on. Douglass is tough.
Overt resistance to involuntary servitude shows in Douglass’s book. Douglass, born into institutionalized slavery in 1818, suffers frequent, severe beatings until one day he resists so vigorously that no one ever beats him so again. With the toughness assimilated from the Southern milieu, rather than surrender his self-respect--if not his life--in the crucible of Mr. Covey’s barn in 1834, Douglass resists with physical prowess Equiano never does use. Such difference in resistance further manifests in Douglass’s escape, at risk to his life, not at the giving of forty pounds British currency, as with Equiano. With lifetime slavery ineluctably closing in, Douglass risks final resistance, escaping to New York for freedom in 1838.
In the sense of having a cultural support group, Douglass is born straddling two worlds: an African counterculture of resistance and Southern institutionalized forced servitude. He is born assimilating his captors’ language, yet into his fellow captives’ resistant counterculture within slavery. Therein are sturdy variations on, and some rejections of, his captors’ language, religion, and tradition. With that support, he never loses his human dignity, no matter the violent ordeals to which he is repeatedly subjected. He has his counterculture among others enslaved, which gives him room to expand his own opinions more than Equiano has until later in his time. Equiano has the company of fellow Africans at times, but those times are generally less brutal, although certainly punctuated with episodes of terrible violence, such as the Middle Passage, which along with his purported kidnapping, modern scholars black and white doubt he actually experienced.
Douglass does encounter friendlier people who offer assimilation. He accepts this gift with apparent wholeheartedness, although not unquestioningly. Douglass expresses serious reservations about Southern Christians supporting involuntary forced labor, although he holds meetings at a church to teach.
He does accept literacy. An inventory of his personal possessions before he escapes slavery reveals only two objects that are truly his own possession, not something given to him as part of slavery, such as his clothing. Douglass owns “the magic root” he is given, but more significantly, he owns a piece of chalk he found. With this, he seeks out the assimilation of literacy and writing, as crucial to resisting the slavery that threatens to be his doom.
Refusing assimilation into the voiceless, choiceless Southern plantation slavery and instead developing resistance there, Douglass earns the right to develop his own resistant voice in the North, while assimilating that civilization. According to an anecdote of that period, bolstered by a letter found from Douglass to John Brown, Douglass is suspected, before the war, of complicity in the attack at Harper’s Ferry by radical Brown (Meriman). They are friends, and the story goes that Douglass hears federal agents are coming to search for him and for documents linking him to the attack. He flees to Canada just hours ahead of the agents, but remembers in time to send word back home to a telegraph operator he trusts to break into his desk and destroy certain papers.
Demonstrating the success of his efforts to assimilate, Douglass does work for the government and for himself in various capacities. Douglass serves as an Army recruiter, helping raise the first regiment of African American soldiers. He also meets twice with President Lincoln, owns a newspaper, serves as a commissioner for President Grant, owns a bank, becomes a United States Marshall, is appointed by President Garfield to a high-paying government job, and serves as Commissioner to Haiti (Erera “Timeline”). That Douglass has all these opportunities, and is a sought-after public speaker, is remarkable for any man, although with mixed success. However, as the successful writer of his own story he is most remembered.
Nevertheless, Douglass also writes resisting protesting letters to the editor of The New York Times, saying, for example, after the war, “The North can stand by and see without interference white and black men who fought in the late war for the preservation of the Union kukluxed, murdered, and driven into the swamps.” Douglass, in such letters, as did Equiano, worked all the rest of his life to aid those still in danger.
Equiano (freedom in 1766) and Douglass (freedom in 1838) exist in diverse worlds with regard to involuntary servitude; yet, they each must assimilate and resist to survive. Each endures unnamable horrors. Equiano endures permanent kidnapping, the Middle Passage, or else is born into slavery’s attendant brutality, and yet writes The Life of Olaudah Equiano against forced enslavement from the viewpoint of one who has a successful life. Douglass, living in the nineteenth century in the United States as Southern slavery nears its final brutalities, endures and witnesses worse punishment, but emerges furthermore with a powerful voice for freedom, in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In retrospect, each seems a hero in his own right, by his own lights, and a man for his season. Perhaps the saintly Equiano was the best fit for England in the 1700s, and the human “friendly man-of-war” Douglass for the Civil War. You both fight and join the culture that oppresses you.
Works Cited
Collins-Sibley, G. Michelle. “Who Can Speak?
Authority and Authenticity in Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley.” Journal
of Colonialism and Colonial History. Ed. Kathryn Joy McKnight. 22 November
2007. <http://libproxy.uhcl.edu:2167/journals/journal_of_
colonialism_and_colonial_history/v005/5.3collins_sibley.html>.
Douglass, F., Jr. “A Solid South.” 1876. The
New York Times. 22 November 2007. <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=
950CE4D81630E53ABC4C51DFBF66838D669FDE&oref=login>.
Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life
of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.” 1845. The Classic Slave
Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Signet Classic: New York, 2002.
323-436.
Equiano, Olaudah. “The Life of Olaudah
Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African.” 1789. The Classic Slave
Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Signet Classic: New York, 2002.
15-247.
Erera, Suzanne. “Equiano Background,
Experiences, and Travel.” The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano. Ed.
William Howarth. 22 November 2007. <http://www.princeton.
edu/%7Ehowarth/304.Projects/Erera/Pages/Background.htm>.
Erera, Suzanne. “Olaudah Equiano Timeline.”
The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano. Ed. William Howarth. 22 November
2007. <http://www.princeton.edu/~howarth/304.
Projects/Erera/Pages/Timeline.htm>.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Introduction.” 1987.
The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Signet Classic:
New York, 2002. 1-14.
Library of Congress. “Frederick Douglass
Timeline.” American Memory: The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of
Congress. Ed. Library of Congress. 24 August 2004. 22 November 2007. <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/doughtml/timeline.html>.
Meriman, Alan. “Some Anecdotes of Frederick
Douglass.” 1889. The New York Times. 22 November 2007. <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=2&res=
9501E7D81139E433A25752C1A96F9C94699ED7CF&oref=slogin&oref=slogin>.
Potkay, Adam. “History, Oratory, and God in Equaino’s Interesting Narrative.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 34 (2001): 601-24.
Three consultations about the class presentation paper –
1. Dr. White and Me
My vital, personal consultations with Dr. White regarding my presentation paper dealt with refining my topic, the general organization of my paper, tightly binding it together with a strong, controlling thesis sentence, and providing topic sentences for every paragraph. We also discussed keeping “my eye on the ball,” so to speak--keeping the topic in sight at all times, in every paragraph and every sentence, not to mention keeping the reader in mind at all times.
More esoteric aspects of writing came up as well. We chatted about “front-loading” paragraphs with information that leads a reader into the paragraph and further, prepares them for the “pay off” of the paragraph. We discussed the reader’s patience, with relation to not making them wait too long for the “payoff” of a sentence, a paragraph or a provocative statement or idea. I had never had the pleasure of discussing such things before, and found it fascinating.
In this same arena of literary exploration, expletive sentence structure came up, and I discovered not only what it was, but that I used it too much, so I began physically moving all the working verbs and important nouns nearer the front of sentences. Creating characters with unique characteristics, making them more memorable, and easier for the reader to imagine formed another topic. Forming different voices and vocabulary for different characters came up, too. Piling up adjectives came up once in person and again by email. “Dogpiling” adjectives, my own description for that, and not very scholarly, will certainly stay with me now that I am aware of it. Not all of these discussions were with regard to this one paper, but I am certainly going to use all of them for this paper.
We talked in person and by email. Email is good for quick questions and single points, but personal meetings, with pens and papers on hand, are where the magic of the personal tutoring of a student by a doctor of literature occurs. A wonderful thing, this has been exceedingly rare in my lifetime. Class is great, always interesting, and rewarding, but class is simply not the time or place for one-on-one professor-student discussion. Personal meetings are ideal for this kind of teaching and learning.
Obviously, the student must go in with an open mind, open to supportive criticisms of one’s writing style, topic or any other aspect which is within the realms of human discussion. I consider myself very flexible, and willing to learn, willing to respect the opinion of one far more trained than I am in literature. Thus, I felt our meetings were very productive. Dr. White will say what is on his mind, with humor and tact, and yet makes clear the aspects that one needs to consider for improvement.
For example, at one point I wanted to compare the vocabulary of Ouladah Equiano to that of Daniel Defoe, by simple word count. Dr. White helped me to see, that while that might prove of interest that the scholarly audience for which I was preparing would be waiting for me to stop “crunching numbers” and get to some literature. He helped me to see that they would be expecting interpretations and discussion of literary aspects of how their vocabularies are used. I understood what Dr. White was saying and we tossed several topics back and forth, until I discovered we had evolved a topic of interest not only to myself but also to general audiences.
Simply put, I suggest taking advantage of this rare opportunity to meet with and learn from a friendly, scholarly professor would be to a writer’s benefit, and quite enjoyable, as well.
2. The Writing Center and Me –
Our session began with an overview of the purpose of our meeting, and discussion of what we would cover. First, the reader asked what special interests I had, which I appreciated, as I had specific concerns, which did not fall within just any average purview of a paper. Furthermore, clarity, punctuation, and citations were discussed, as well as sundry other items.
The reader read my work and “marked it up,” as they say. He said my paper was good, and had only a few things to suggest. We patched up some places that had no commas, and added an extra word where needed, as he thought necessary.
I told the reader about Dr. White’s special concerns about topic sentences and keeping the topic “buzzwords” in sight at all times. We looked over the paper again, and he said that he felt as though I had in fact done that adequately. I asked if perhaps I had used the topic key words too often--were there too many references to the key words of my paper? I used them in every paragraph, trying diligently to keep them in play, but not wanting to overdo it. He felt like I had not overdone it, either. I also asked about sentence structure, and that seemed acceptable, as well.
3. Mr. William Boatman brings scholarly reference into play.
Mr. Boatman presented his suggestions in two parts, which dovetailed closely together. As reference and literary expert, he suggested that I work with some scholarly references, especially at the beginning of my paper, to instill more credibility, to let the reader know that I have actually researched the area, and to give the reader a sense of security and direction as they listened to my presentation. He also said beginning with academic references would assure an audience that my paper included knowledge of previous academic work on this topic. We did discuss papers done for presentation as possibly being different from scholarly papers, also.
“Received wisdom,” his phrase, played widely in both areas. Starting a paper with an erudite quote reassures the audience that they are hearing more than my argument, which might possibly be something far out of mainstream scholarship. Listeners and readers feel more comfortable, hearing at least a brief quote based on the “received wisdom” of credible educational works. A sense of scholarly background also comes with such quotes. The audience is better prepared, and knows what direction one is going. A thorough job, with this regard, would even provide several critical opinions and give the audience a sense of where the academic trend in a field is tending. If there are two or three critical trends, it reinforces one’s credibility, thus the audience’s acceptance of one’s words.
We opened Jstor and Project Muse, scholarly research engines, and checked through some websites, looking for the kind of quotes Mr. Boatman had in mind, and found that scholarly articles did in fact structure themselves with beginning quotes such as he suggested. A very scholarly, competent impression emerges when one begins with evidence of familiarity with the scholarship in the field, besides helping give the paper a strong start.
What if no critic is found who is discussing what one wishes to present? Mr. Boatman said that possibly one could find indirect mention of the topic at hand. We researched some more, and found some usable quotes of that nature.
Mr. Boatman is adept at research, and when I first met him, I had spent a day looking for something I needed, with no results. Ten minutes after I walked into his office, we had enough to keep me busy, and that is the truth. He taught me that day the things I still use every time I research, though since he got me started, I have continued to learn a little more. If I had not already learned that from him, I am sure I would have learned those things on this occasion.
Since I had visited with him before, with great benefit, this visit was more abstract and dealt with finesse points of scholarly papers. Just as the personal meetings with Dr. White, the one-on-one meetings with Mr. Boatman have been simply extraordinary, useful more than I could have imagined. “Standing on the shoulders of giants,” is the phrase that comes to mind.
