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Becoming the Other: The Mimesis of Metaphor in Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Peter A. Dorsey
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Abstract

In his Narrative (1845), Frederick Douglass constructs a self based on conversion rhetoric and binary logic. In the greatly expanded My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), he complicates this textual self by both imitating and criticizing tropes conventionally used in the slavery debate, such as metaphors related to animals, Christianity, and manhood. Emphasizing the constructed nature of mimesis and metaphor, Douglass demonstrates his ability to escape the bondage of reductionist language even as he claims the power associated with linguistic mastery. This revision of self emerges from his experience of northern racism, manifested in his limited role in William Lloyd Garrison's organization. Douglass's renunciation of Garrisonian dogma and his entry into political action—including his striking textual reinterpretation of the United States Constitution—coincide with the stylistically “modernist” self of the second autobiography.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 111 , Issue 3 , May 1996 , pp. 435 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1996

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