For this discussion board forum, I would like for you to think about how Douglass understands selfhood, freedom, and race in relationship to slavery as an institution. For example, at the conclusion of his narrative, Douglass writes how when he was first asked to speak about his experience as a slave in front of a sympathetic white audience of Northern abolitionists, he felt ashamed, self-conscious, and inferior: “It [public speaking] was a severe cross, and I took it up reluctantly. The truth was, I felt myself a slave, and the idea of speaking to white people weighed on me” (1062). Ironically, even when physically free from bondage, Douglass suggests that he had not left the psychological affects of slavery behind. Throughout his narrative, then, Douglass is insistent that slavery is/was not only a physical form of bondage but a psychological state as well. In fact, one might argue that his narrative insists upon the psychological damage of slavery more than the physical — or rather, he wants us to see how one affects the other. Indeed, this is a common theme in his narrative. For instance, look at these examples: * After his confrontation with Mr. Covey, Douglass writes however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact,” suggesting that freedom was a choice he made and actualized for himself. * Douglass tells us that to understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs sung by slaves, one had to be outside what he calls the “circle of slavery,” suggesting that he only understood the emotional impact of these songs AFTER he left slavery. Why? * When Douglass writes famously, You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man,” he suggests that slavery prevents a male slave from achieving a certain level of masculinity, insinuating that slavery robs the slave of their dignity on the level of their gender and sexuality. Thus, I want you to reflect on what Douglass wants his readers to see about slavehood in its relationship to selfhood. Why is it so important for Douglass to show us the psychological damage that slavery enacts? How or why does he want his audience to see that the condition and experience of slavery is not merely concluded once a slave escapes from bondage, like he did as a fugitive slave? In short, what image of selfhood does Douglass want to project to his white reading audience? Is he relying on the self-made man tradition in his narrative or is he challenging it? How is Douglass, in presenting his struggles as psychological AND physical,, challenging his Northern audience’s conception of blackness and selfhood?
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