|
Women
to govern men . . . slaves
freemen . . . being total
violations and perversions
of the laws of nature
and nations. . . .
—Francis
Bacon
-
As
a strategic intervention
in the debate on
the abolition of slavery The
Interesting Narrative
of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano, or Gustavus
Vassa, the African made
its author famous,
but the full import
of the text is only
now beginning to
re-emerge.[1]The
text is a complex
political performance
because, as Sonia
Hofkosh emphasizes, "Equiano
enters the political
debate [on slavery]
through personal
experience. . .
. The
Interesting Narrative seeks
to influence ('excite')
the collective,
political body
of Parliament .
. . through the
vocabulary of
sentiment and feeling,
appealing directly
to the very hearts
of its individual
members" (334).
The preface to
the 1814 edition
of The
Interesting Narrative explicitly
states that
the representation
of his sufferings
is designed
to elicit sympathetic
affect in his
readers: "Being
a true relation
of occurrences
which had taken
place, and of
sufferings which
he had endured,
it produced a
degree of humane
feelings in men's
minds, to excite
which the most
animated addresses
and the most
convincing reasoning
would have laboured
in vain" (Qtd.
in Hofkosh 334).
By suggesting
that reason may
not provide a
viable political
tool in the abolition
of slavery, these
prefatory remarks
focus the reader's
attention on
the body itself—on
precisely that
which is commodified
in the trade
of African slaves. Hofkosh's
appraisal of
these remarks
draws attention
to the shared
bodily existence
of slaves and
readers:
The
book is directed
not to the reason,
an abstract quantity,
but seeks rather
to register its effect
in the very bodies
of its readers—at
their feet, in their
hearts, and in their
minds. It
represents individual
experience to them—both
the author's and
their own—creating
for them an isolate,
intimate space
through which they
can respond sympathetically
to its argument. It
operates from
the inside out,
self-referentially,
narrowing its
focus in order
to universalize
its appeal. .
. . The political
dimension of the
text is thus articulated
in libidinal language;
in Equiano's abolitionist
intervention, his
life story, the
political is personal.
(334-5)
The
affect generated
by reading
about private
bodily suffering
is therefore
crucial to Equiano's
political mission.
-
However,
if this generation
of affect is to have
political effects,
a series of complex
substitutions needs
to unfold.[2]On
the one hand, Equiano's
suffering needs
to be hollowed out
such that it can
exemplify the pain
of commodification
as such. His
pain needs to synechdocally
stand as part of
the whole of slavery's
anguish. This
implies a certain
cancellation of
his private experience
in the service
of a generalizable
exemplarity. On
the other hand,
the reader's pain,
that which allows
him or her to be "put
into the place
of another," must
undergo a similar
set of modulations.[3] Before
this libidinal
economy can be
harnessed in the
political project
of abolishing
slavery, the generated
affect has to
be simultaneously
separated from
Equiano and from
the reader so
that it may be
attached to the
space of commodification. What
this means is
that the effectivity
of Equiano's text
lies in its power
to make the reader
experience objecthood. Paradoxically,
I believe that
this is achieved
by inculcating
affective responses
and then extracting
that which we
associate most
directly with
emotion—i.e.
its specific
subjective quality. In
other words,
libidinal language
is deployed to
make one understand
the horrors that
attend the libido's
cancellation thereby
founding a politics
from the ground
of the object. One
of the aims of
this essay is
to demonstrate
that such a politics
is remarkably
volatile and while
apparently opening
onto transgressive
possibilities
also seems prone
to reversion in
its specific manifestation
in the discourse
network of anti-slavery
activism. However,
to achieve such
a demonstration
requires that
we bring styles
of thinking endemic
to queer theory
to bear on the
historical materialism
of much recent
work on the relationship
between colonial
and metropolitan
society in Romantic
studies.[4] Specifically,
this essay inhabits
the still underappreciated
period in Foucault's
thinking immediately
prior to and
following the
publication of La
Volonté de
savoir in
which he attempted
to articulate
the relationship
between sexuality,
biopower, race
and the regulation
of the middle
classes.[5]In
accordance
with David
M. Halperin's
recent reminder
that Foucault's
project needs
to be understood
as an "inquiry
into the modalities
of human subjectivation," this
essay historicizes
Equiano as
a subject
of desire
at a particularly
vexed moment
in the history
not only of
British imperialism,
but also
of circum-Atlantic
subjectivity
(88).[6]By
attempting
to historicize
specific
scenes, desires
and sexual
acts in Equiano's
text, one
can discern
not only the
intersection
of sexual
and imperial
economies,
but also the
largely forgotten
libidinal
dynamics of
Dissenting
religion during
the period.[7]
-
This
essay examines this
problematic by concentrating
on a small episode
in The
Interesting Narrative in
which Equiano meets
a young Musquito
man for whom property
is a largely foreign
notion. The
interaction between
one who was formerly
a commodity and
one who does not
yet know how commodities
circulate occurs
late in The
Interesting Narrative.
My contention
is that this complex
pedagogical scene
constitutes the
radical core of
Equiano's text
and as such provides
a model for understanding
the libidinal
exchange between
reader and text
articulated above. Furthermore,
this scene also
involves a specific
historical intervention
aimed at teaching
the Musquito prince
how to resist
the commodification
of his people
as their region
is colonized. In
what I see as
a symptomatic
gap in the existing
scholarship on
this text, it
is never asked
who George might
be.[8] Since
neither Equiano's
eighteenth-century
readers, nor
his twentieth-century
exegetes seem
willing to enquire
after specific
Musquito individuals,
I want to establish
George's identity
and suggest
that it may provide
a key for understanding
Equiano's textual
and political
strategies.
-
Late
in 1775, shortly
after Equiano undergoes
a Methodist conversion,
he is invited by
Dr. Charles Irving
to join "a
new adventure, in
cultivating a plantation
at Jamaica and the
Musquito Shore" in
present day Nicaragua
(202).[9] Aside
from making money,
Equiano's primary
desire during his
connection with
Dr. Irving is "to
be an instrument,
under God, of bringing
some poor sinner
to my well beloved
master, Jesus Christ" (202). Equiano
concentrates his
missionary activities
on a young Musquito
prince who is returning
to Central America
from an embassy
in London. That
embassy constitutes
a minor moment
in the British attempts
to colonize the
Musquito coast.
-
After
a series of struggles
with the Spanish
for control of the
Musquito Shore, "the
British bestowed
sovereignty on the
Musquito Indians,
i.e. on the hereditary
'king' of
the Musquitos, and
formed an alliance
with them" (Naylor
46). As Robert
Naylor
argues, "the
weakness of this
particular protectorate
system was that
the territory
was occupied
by scattered
clusters of mesolithic
Indians with no
formal conception
of territorial
domain in the
western sense.
. . . Therefore,
the British would
virtually have
had to create
the very [sovereign]
entity to which
they were allegedly
allied" (46).
In the late 1760s
and early 1770s
this fictional
sovereign
body became the
object of intense
economic speculation. Eight
merchants, including
William Pitt
the elder, formed
the Albera Poyer
project, which
quietly acquired
vast tracts
of land in
the Black River
district from
the Musquito "king" George
I, with the
hope that Britain
would formally
colonize the
region in the
near future. Britain's
superintendent
in the region,
Robert
Hodgson, became
convinced
that the natives "were
being cheated
out
of their lands
and that the
Musquito
Shore was becoming
'prey to the
rapacity
of a few individuals'" (59).
In the interest
of maintaining
faux-diplomatic
relations
with the
Musquito and
of foiling
a land scheme
that did not
include him,
Hodgson unilaterally
declared his
authority
over all lands
and possessions
of the Musquito
Indians and
announced
that land transactions
involving
the Musquito
would be regulated
by his office. The
ensuing legal
crisis is
directly
related to
Equiano's
text, for
the members
of the Albera
Poyer project
sent the
Musquito king's
son
to London
to demand
that Hodgson
be recalled.
-
When
the prince is introduced
into Equiano's narrative,
Equiano recognizes
but does not elaborate
on his connection
to the Albera Poyer
land-scheme:
Before
I embarked, I found
with . . . Doctor
[Irving] four Musquito
Indians, who were
chiefs in their own
country, and were
brought here by some
English traders for
some selfish ends. One
of them was the
Musquito king's son,
a youth of almost
eighteen years of
age; and whilst he
was here he was baptized
by the name of George. (202-3)
What
Equiano does
not explain
is that George
and his companions
have come to
London to demand
that Hodgson
be recalled
on the grounds
that he has
failed to prevent
the enslavement
of natives
in the region. Through
George, the
project is
attempting to
obviate Hodgson's
interference
by having him
recalled on
grounds unrelated
to the land
scheme.[10] In
other words,
anti-slavery
arguments
are being used
to further
the project's
plans for colonization. Robert
Naylor is
careful to
point out the
suspicious
nature of this
visit by emphasizing
first, that
the other
interested
party in the
land transaction
is George's
father and
second, that
the principal
agents in
the trade of
native slaves
were the Musquito
Indians themselves. Bolstered
by their
allegiance
with the
British, the
Musquito actively
captured and
sold their
tribal enemies
to English
planters.
-
Equiano's
temporary reticence
regarding this corrupt
deployment of George's
anti-slavery position
breaks down when
he attempts to give
George a double lesson
first in protestant
election and later
in capitalist exchange:
In
our passage I took
all pains that I
could to instruct
the Indian prince
in the doctrines of
Christianity, of which
he was entirely ignorant;
and to my great joy
he was quite attentive,
and received with
gladness the truths
that the Lord enabled
me to set forth to
him. I
taught him in the
compass of eleven
days all the letters,
and he could put
even two or three
of them together,
and spell them. I
had Fox's Martyrology
with cuts, and he
used to be very fond
of looking into it,
and would ask many
questions about the
papal cruelties he
saw depicted there,
which I explained
to him. (203)
In
this colonial
encounter,
the scene of
reading is remarkably
similar to
the one Equiano
stages in The
Interesting
Narrative as
a whole.
In the process
of conversion,
Equiano has
hailed the
Musquito prince,
who has been
baptized and
given the
name George,
into an affective
relation
with representations
of suffering. Once
this affect
is generated,
Equiano
then explains
the proper
interpretation
of the represented
agony. Equiano
subtly
intervenes
in George's
embassy,
but the
transcultural
lesson
works by
way of a
series
of perverse
narratives. Equiano's
interaction
with George
involves
two masochistic
scenes—a
broad
scenario
of Christian
masochism
with a
more specifically
sexualized
fantasy
at its
core—which
establish
a series
of interlocking
political
allegories. These
allegories
draw parallels
between
the martyrdom
of Protestant
Englishmen,
the psycho-sexual
dynamics
of shipboard
society,
and a
specific
moment
in the
history
of British
colonization. The
allegorical
dimensions
of The
Interesting
Narrative speak
directly
not
only
to the
construction
of
racial
categories
in
late
eighteenth-century
Britain
and
America,
but
also
to the
forms
of complex
political
resistance
developed
by Anglo-Africans
to
deal
with
imperial
domination
in
the
Black
Atlantic.
Equiano's
Invisible
Church
-
Linda
Colley has recently
reminded us of the
significant role
played by Foxe's Book
of Martyrs. . . in
the consolidation
of British nationalism
in the eighteenth
century (25-8).
Based on Foxe's Acts
and Monuments of
1563 the book was
revived and circulated
in an aggressively
patriotic fashion
in the last thirty
years of the eighteenth
century. Publishers
and patriots alike
realized that
Foxe's representation
of the agonies
of Protestant
martyrs during
the reign of Queen
Mary had a certain
translatability
to contemporary
British politics. The
burning bodies
could be retroactively
cited as evidence
not only of their
resolute faith,
but also of their
future countrymen's
Protestant destiny.What
emerges from
this specific
imagination of
community could
be described
as a form of masochistic
nationalism—i.e.
a nationalism
that coheres
in the pain of
its annihilated
members.[11]
- Masochistic
nationalism may seem
counter-intuitive to
our normative understanding
of national character
since masochism carries
with it the connotation
of perversion, a turning
aside from truth or
right, and specifically
a turning from pleasure
to pain. As
the quote from Bacon
in my epigraph indicates
the perverse is threatening
because it deviates
from the principle
of hierarchy—for
Bacon, women should
not govern men and
slaves should not
rule over masters. Significantly,
Colley argues that
Foxe's text has nationalist
effects precisely
because it threatens
state hierarchy. To
understand this
we need to recognize
that Equiano and
George are poring
over a book that
represents two kinds
of violence. The
violence in Foxe's Book
of Martyrs does
not "go
all one way." Richard
Helgerson suggests
that "the
persecution
and martyrdom
of those whom
Foxe considers
members of
the true church
of Christ are
the book's most
persistent
subject but
God's punishment
of persecutors
makes a strong
countertheme" (255).
This is important
because the
second type
of violence
allows for
a type of nationalism
predicated
on the disjunction
of nation and
state and hence
from the extant
governmental
strategies
of modernity. Foxe's
text contains
vivid accounts
of Queen Mary's
persecution
of Protestant
heretics accompanied
by less systematic
representations
of sudden
violence in
which the state
sanctioned
persecutors
are killed
by animals
or natural
disasters. In
the first
instance, "The
violence of
Antichrist
against the
true church
of Christ and
its members
is carried
out by willing
human agents
occupying
offices of
great worldly
power," whereas "the
violence of
God [in the
second instance]
is either direct
or else mediated
by unwitting
actors" (258).
As Richard
Helgerson
states, "God's
violence
requires
no institutional
order. [Beneath
these two
distinct
forms of
punishment]
lies a double
and potentially
divided
sense of
communal
identity" (258).
The
way in which these
two communities connect
is of crucial historical
importance, for "the
visible church of
which the king is the
head should also be
the local embodiment
of Christ's invisible
and universal church" (258).
In Foxe's Acts
and Monuments,
the period immediately
following Wycliffe's
vernacular translation
of the Bible constitutes
a significant rupture
between the visible
and invisible church,
between the state
and a less tangible
form of religious
community. Of this
latter group, Helgerson
argues that
Its
members
are readers
who imagine
themselves
in invisible
fellowship
with thousands
of other
readers,
particularly
those who
encounter
the word
in the
same vernacular
translation. Like
the nation,
this imagined
community
does not
necessarily
coincide
with the
state. Indeed,
the state
may frustrate
its ambition
to achieve
a visible
institutional
embodiment
of its
own, may
hunt down
and persecute
its members. But
where
the imagined
community
does
not coincide
with
the state,
it saps
the state's
legitimacy
and
the legitimacy
of the
social
hierarchy
that
constitutes
the
power
structure
of the
state.
(266)
Within
the overall
narrative,
the accounts
of the
suffering
of the
invisible
church
are embodied
in the
burning
Protestant
martyrs,
but these
stories
are counter-balanced
by a chronicle
history
of England
in which
worldly
and godly
institutions
exist in
harmony. This
balance
allows
Foxe to
figure
the period
of Queen
Mary's
reign as
an aberration
which
once corrected
will allow
a re-harmonization
of worldly
and divine
governance,
of state
and divinely
elect
nation. However,
the text
in Equiano's
hands
moves in
an altogether
different
direction.
-
Significantly,
Equiano's primary
teaching tool is
not the magisterial
1563 edition of Foxe's Acts
and Monuments,
but rather a more
portable abridged
version of 1760
with elaborate
copper plate illustrations
edited by Martin
Madan, a noted
and controversial
Wesleyan teacher,
entitled The
Book of Martyrs:
Containing an
Account
of the Sufferings
and Death of the
Protestants in
the Reign of Mary
the First. Illustrated
with Copper Plates. Originally
Written by Mr
John
Fox; And now
Revised
and Corrected
with
a Recommendary
Preface
by the Revd:
Mr:
Madan.[12] As
the title indicates
the illustrations
are a significant
selling point,
but they also
fill the space
left by significant
elisions. Commenting
on the various
editions of
Foxe's
text, William
Haller notes
that eighteenth-century
abridgements
are
a vulgarization of
the original for
an increasingly narrow
evangelical Protestant
piety. Foxe's
whole account of
ecclesiastical and
national history,
by which he sought
to make his contemporaries
understand what
happened in Mary's
reign and its bearing
on the situation
in which they found
themselves under
her successor dropped
completely out. (252)
Without
its counter-balancing
national history,
the book in
Equiano and
George's hands
establishes,
in Haller's
words, "a
strongly oppositional
identity,
an identity
founded on
suffering
and resistance
and profoundly
antithetical
to the hierarchical
order of the
English state" (268).
Standing in
place of this
historical
critique, the
illustrations
demand closer
scrutiny.
-
With
only a few exceptions
the illustrations
in The
Book of Martyrs repeat
the same compositional
elements (see
fig.
1). Typically,
the centre of
the engraving is
dominated by the
martyr himself
who is usually
surrounded by a
frame of fire and
uttering his final
testimonies of
faith. That
frame is itself
enclosed by a crowd
of onlookers who
fill the background
of the image. In
between the crowd
and the burning
martyr one finds
two or more executioners.
In light of Kaja
Silverman's analysis
of masochism,
the illustrations
which ostensibly
fascinate George
conform to the
structural contours
of Christian
masochism as described
by Theodor Reik
in Masochism
in Sex and Society. Reik
argues that
the psychic economy
of moral masochism
has three primary
characteristics—"exhibitionism
or 'demonstrativeness,'
revolutionary
fervor, and
'suspense'" (Silverman
197).[13] For
Reik,
an
external audience
is a structural necessity
[in Christian masochism],
although it may be
either earthly or
heavenly. Second,
the body is centrally
on display, whether
it is being consumed
by ants or roasting
over a fire. Finally,
behind all these "scenes" or "exhibits" is
the master tableau
or group fantasy—Christ
nailed to the
cross, head wreathed
in thorns and
blood dripping
from his impaled
sides. (197)
The
illustrations
in The
Book of Martyrs contain
all of these
elements. In
figure
1 (detail),
the
displayed
body
dominates
the centre
of the image,
the earthly
audience
surrounds
the martyr,
and key elements
of the composition
invoke the
crucifixion—the
attitude
of
the martyr's
body and
the
lance-bearing
officers
make
the link
to
Christ all
too evident.
The
body being
burned and
beaten "is
not so
much
the body
as
the 'flesh,'
and
beyond
that
sin itself,
and the
whole fallen
world" (197).
As Silverman
argues,
this substitution
of the
flesh
for the
body "pits
the Christian
masochist
against
the society
in which
he or
she lives,
makes
of that
figure
a rebel,
or even
a revolutionary
of sorts.
In
this
particular
subspecies
of moral
masochism
there
would
seem
to be
a strong
heterocosmic
impulse–the
desire
to remake
the
world
in another
image
altogether,
to forge
a different
cultural
order" (197-8).
When
one
applies
that
heterocosmic
impulse
to
the
realm
of
anti-slavery
activism,
the
slave's
suffering
is
retained
as
the
instantiation
not
only
of
the
eternal
punishment
of
those
who
participated
in
and
perpetuated
the
slave
trade,
but
also
of
a
different
cultural
order
beyond
the
reach
of
racial
derogation
and
commodification.
It
is
this
conjunction
of
vengeance
and
radical
renewal
that
characterizes
Equiano's
largely
eschatological
approach
to
the
political
in
this
passage.[14]
-
This
threat to the principle
of hierarchy gains
some resonance in
light of Paul Gilroy's
recent decision in The
Black Atlantic to
consider diasporic
African identity
not in terms of
roots but rather "as
a process of movement
and mediation
that
is more appropriately
approached via
the homonym routes" (19).
If following
Gilroy
we recognize "the
image of the
ship
[as] a living,
micro-political
system in motion," then
Equiano's invocation
of the invisible
church through
the act of
reading The
Book of Martyrs with
George establishes
him as part
of an oppositional
community
that is being
persecuted
by the ship-board
minions of
the English
state. As
the phantasmatic
drama unfolds,
the white
sailors of
the Morning
Star are initially
deployed as
the observers
in the illustrations,
but, borrowing
a phrase from
Reik's analysis
of Christian
masochism, "the
subject [in
this case,
Equiano]
functions
both as the
victim
and the victimizer,
dispensing
with the
need for
an external
object. Even
when the
punishment
seems to
derive from
the
external
world, it
is in
fact the
result
of a skillful
unconscious
manipulation
of 'adverse
incidents'" (Silverman
196).[15] If
we understand
Equiano's
invocation
of the
Marian
martyrs
in a thoroughly
political
fashion,
then what
is
emerging
is a subtle
bid for
political
autonomy
in a limited
field
of action.
As
Silverman
summarizes, "the
sufferings
and
defeats
of the
fantasizing
subject
are
dramatized
in order
to make
the
final
victory
appear
all
the
more
glorious
and
triumphant" (196).
However,
this
demonstrative
aspect
of
Equiano's
text
involves
a second
masochistic
scene
that
is
much
more
overtly
sexualized,
yet
nonetheless
integrally
related
to
the
reading
of
Foxe.
-
As
Equiano continues
his account of George's
conversion, he carefully
notes that George's
act of praying is
not prayer in the
proper sense:
I
made such progress
with this youth,
especially in religion,
that when I used to
go to bed at different
hours of the night,
if he was in his
bed, he would get
up on purpose to go
to prayer with me,
without any other
clothes than his shirt;
and before he would
eat any of his meals
amongst the gentlemen
in the cabin, he would
first come to me and
pray, as
he called it. I
was well pleased
at this, and took
great delight in
him, and used much
supplication to God
for his conversion.(203)
One
could argue
that Equiano's
perspicuity
regarding the
status of prayer
is nothing
more than a
sign of doctrinal
rigor, but
such a reading
downplays the
extent to which
Equiano himself
indicates that
reading The
Book of Martyrs with
George is
traversed
by a complex
economy of
pleasure. This
process
of
conversion
is operating
by way of
perversion
because
Equiano
experiences
pleasure
in
spite of
the
fact that
George's
activities
deviate
from
true prayer.[16] The
moment
when
Equiano
indirectly
represents
George's
use of
the word "pray" should
give us
pause,
for there
is a sense
of estrangement
that enters
the text
when
Equiano
attributes
this naming
to George—when
in fact
it is Equiano
who is introducing
George
to
this ritual. This
mis-attribution
of Equiano's
own actions
and desires
to George
are an
instance
of what
Reik
calls
the
manipulation
of "adverse
incidents." In
the
paragraphs
below,
I argue
that
Foxe
is deployed
such
that
Equiano
becomes
phantasmatically
abased
as the
object
of George's
desire.
-
If
we look closely at
the scene of reading
we see that Equiano
emphasizes that George "was
very fond of looking
into [Fox's Martyrology]" (203). But
this "fondness" has
another register
in which Equiano
constructs George's
desire to join
him at bedtime,
scantily clad
and ready for "prayer." This
double ascription
of desire unfolds
into two different
masochistic trajectories.First,
George's desire
for the book hails
him into an identificatory
relation with
the Christian
martyrs; and second,
George's "readiness
for prayer" figures
Equiano as the
object of George's
desire. The
first textual
hailing is aimed
at George's conversion,
whereas the second
contextual ascription
of desire is
aimed at Equiano's
abasement. Through
this latter
gesture, Equiano
has moved beyond
political identification
with the represented
martyrs in
Foxe.He
is now enacting
his sexual degradation.The
two masochistic
scenarios, the
persecution
of the invisible
church and the
abasement of
Equiano, are
tied together
by George's
name. Since
he has been
named after
the sovereign,
George can figure
simultaneously
as the Other
and as the King. In
this light,
George plays
a perverse yet
constitutive
role in Equiano's
oppositional
relation to
the ungodly "little
world" of
shipboard
society.[17] The
textual and
contextual
trajectories
of masochism
are joined
by the spectral
presence of
the sovereign
who acts as
the apex or
pivot in both
triangular
scenarios.
-
Significantly,
these two masochistic
trajectories are
set in conflict with
one another. If
George achieves a
full identification
with the burning
bodies represented
in The
Book of Martyrs, he
accedes to his conversion
and begins to imagine
himself as a persecuted
member of the invisible
church. In
other words, conversion
will push George
towards the same
masochistic practice
enacted by Equiano,
and thereby deprive
Equiano of his necessary
tormentor.[18] It
is not surprising,
therefore, when
Equiano tells us
that the process
of George's conversion
is not only slow,
but ultimately unsuccessful:
I
was in full hope
of seeing daily every
appearance of that
change which I could
wish; not knowing
the devices of Satan,
who had many of his
emissaries to sow
his tares as fast
as I sowed the good
seed, and pull down
as fast as I built
up. Thus
we went on nearly
four-fifths of our
passage, when Satan
at last got the
upper hand. (203)
Despite
Equiano's desire
for George's
conversion,
the fact that
the whole process
unfolds slowly
fits a crucial
element of
masochistic
practice. According
to Reik, the
moral masochist
develops a
series of strategies
to "prolong
preparatory
detail and
ritual at the
expense of
climax or consummation.
. . . this
implies the
endless postponement
of the moment
at which suffering
yields to
reward" (Silverman
199). Silverman
specifies
the relationship
between suspense
and reward
in Christian
masochism by
focusing on
its temporal
aspects:
The
Christian...lives
his or her life in
perpetual anticipation
of the second coming. The
figural meaning
which this anticipation
implants in present
sufferings makes
it possible for them
to be savored as
future pleasures,
with time folding
over itself in such
a way as to permit
that retroactivity
to be already experienced
now, in a moment
prior to its effectivity. Such
is the fundamentally
perverse nature
of Christian suspense
and the pain it
sanctifies and irradiates.
. . .(200)
In
other words,
Equiano's pleasure
in George is
actually displaced
pleasure that
will be experienced
in the future
when he is
rewarded by
God. Through
George's unachieved "conversion," Equiano
is able to
savour his
future status
in a post-revolutionary
state, in
a post-imperial
cultural order.
-
But
Equiano's oppositionality
at this stage in
the narrative is contingent
on his continuing
relationship with
George. That
which separates
them directly interferes
with Equiano's heterocosmic
fantasies. As
long as Satan "sows
his tares as fast
as [Equiano] sows
the good seed" the
engagement with
George seems capable
of infinite extension—a
kind of interminable
conversion (203). In
a sense, the
steady pace of
Satan's obstruction
works to Equiano's
advantage because
it provides
the suspense
which is so crucial
to the maximization
of pleasure
in the masochistic
subject. However,
when the white
sailors intervene
in George's conversion
they instantiate
a fundamental
shift in Equiano's
masochistic fantasies,
not because they
impede George's
identification
with the invisible
church—that
only suspends
Equiano's reward—but
because their
actions physically,
psychically and
politically separate
George and Equiano. This
separation
pushes Equiano's
masochistic
practice into
more extreme
manifestations
whose specific
details allow
us to clarify
the libidinal
economy which
undergirds his
political resistance
to ship-board
society.
Rape
and Liberation
-
The
subtle and seemingly
innocent account
of George's attempt
to pray is linked
to a much more violent
masochistic scenario
when the white crew
members of the Morning
Star are
introduced into
the scene:
Some
of Satan's messengers,
seeing this poor
heathen much advanced
in piety, began to
ask him whether I
had converted him
to Christianity, laughed
and made their jest
at him, for which
I rebuked them as
much as I could;
but this treatment
caused the prince
to halt between two
opinions. Some
of the true sons
of Belial, who did
not believe that there
was any hereafter,
told him never to
fear the devil, for
there was none existing.
. . .(203-4)
This
passage introduces
a remarkable
subtext which
re-orients
much of the
heterocosmic
desire we have
encountered
thus far. The
subtext is
coded into
Equiano's attack
on the white
sailors as "the
true sons
of Belial" for
the appellation
involves the
threat of
sodomitical
rape. Like
many of Equiano's
presentations
of evil,
he is alluding
to Paradise
Lost:
.
. .when night
Darkens
the streets, then wander
forth the sons
Of
Belial, flown with insolence
and wine.
Witness
the streets of Sodom, and
that night
In
Gibeah, when the hospitable
door
Exposed
a matron to avoid worse rape.(I.
500-5)
Lurking
behind both
Equiano's and
Milton's invocation
of the "sons
of Belial" lies
the combined
story of
sexual violence
and national
election in
Judges 19-21,
whose implications
for not only
the represented
scene of
reading, but
also the act
of reading
Equiano's
text are profound. The
shift from The
Book of
Martyrs to
the book
of Judges
occasions
a reversal
in the flow
of sexual
violence
that subtends
the emergence
of a specifically
national
fantasy.
-
Adam
Potkay's reading
of The
Interesting Narrative persuasively
argues that Equiano
consistently relates
presumably historical
events in the Old
Testament to occurrences
in his own spiritual
life (Potkay, "Olaudah,"
681).
This tropological
strategy was far
from unusual in
Evangelical self-fashionings,
but Potkay demonstrates
that
unlike
other Puritan spiritual
autobiographies,
Equiano's "progress" is
not just the
tropological freeing
of the soul from
the symbolic Egypt
of carnality; rather,
his journey proceeds on
a literal as well
as an allegorical
level. According
to Equiano's telling
of his life, he literally retraces
the course of
the Bible from
patriarchal mores
. . . to captivity
in a strange
land; and from
deliverance to
repratriation
in a Beulah land
of the spirit. In
short, Equiano
literally reenacts
the basic narrative
pattern of the
books of Genesis
and Exodus, as
well as learning,
by his conversion
or Christian re-birth,
to read Israelite
history along
with his own experience
as an allegory
of spiritual
deliverance (681).[19]
This
narrativization
of personal
experience
in terms of
Israelite history
blurs the line
between spiritual
and political
deliverance. This
blurring was
especially
evident in the
early Methodist
teachings of
George Whitefield. Equiano
attests to
having seen
Whitefield speak,
and as Potkay
argues, "Whitefield's
message of
spiritual liberation
from the bondage
of 'these depraved
natures of
ours' sounded
to some like
a call for liberation,
pure and simple" (Potkay
and Burr 9).[20]As
Whitefield
states,
Let
us consider ourselves
. . . as persons travelling
to a long eternity;
as rescued by the free
grace of God, in some
measure, from our natural
Egyptian bondage, and
marching under the
conduct of our spiritual
Joshua, through the
wilderness of this world,
to the land of our heavenly
Canaan. (Quoted in
Potkay and Burr, 10)
Potkay's
account of the tropological
gestures in The
Interesting Narrative focuses
primarily on how Equiano
links Igbo society
to the pastoral state
of the Patriarchs in
Genesis, and on how
he figures his enslavement,
auto-manumission and
conversion as an enactment
of the Israelites'
escape from captivity
in Exodus.[21]The
Genesis/Exodus allegory
animates much anti-slavery
discourse, but Equiano
strays to other sections
of the Old Testament. The "sons
of Belial" episode
under consideration
in this essay rehearses
an infamous passage
later in the history
of the Israelites
which is much more
difficult to understand
in terms of liberation,
but which has everything
to do with the consolidation
of power in what
can only be described
as a national corpus.
- Equiano's
invocation
of Judges at
this late point
in The
Interesting
Narrative allows
us to extend
and deepen
Potkay's
reading of
this tropology.As
a historical
text, "the
Book of
Judges
describes
the years
from the
death of
Joshua,
Moses' successor,
to the time
of Samuel,
the first
of the great
prophets
and the herald
of the kingdom
of Israel" (Interpreter's
Bible 688). It
was a
period
of fractious
inter-tribal
struggle
in which
the twelve
tribes
eventually
came to
see themselves
as a unified
people. According
to Jacob
M. Myers,
The
prime factor
in the growing
national unity
was the religion
of Yahweh. The
various national
and tribal
lists, and
the tribal
relationships
themselves
[that recur
throughout
Judges], show
the Israelites
were a heterogeneous
group held
together only
by a more or
less common
experience
and by their
devotion to
Yahweh." (684-5)
Judges
therefore is
an account
of national
consolidation
based on shared
religious belief. In
this context,
Equiano understands
his struggle
with the sailors
on board the Morning
Star as
a tropological
rehearsal
of the war
between the
tribes of
Israel and
the renegade
Benjaminites
that points
to an allegorical
unification
not only
of Christian
believers,
but also
of ethnically
distinct
peoples in
the emergent
British nation.
-
Equiano
integrates
the Book
of Judges
into his narrative
first, by
declaring
the sailors "true
Sons of
Belial," and
second,
by staging
multiple
scenes of
hospitality. The
sailors
taunt George
by telling "him
never
to fear
the devil,
for there
was none
existing;
and if
ever he
came to
the prince,
they desired
he may
be sent
to them" (204). This
taunt
obliquely
rehearses
Judges
19 in
which
the Benjaminites,
figured
by Milton
as the
sons
of Belial,
demand
that
an old
man
from
Gibeah
break
the
laws
of hospitality
and give
up his
Levite
guest
to the
lustful
mob.
The Benjaminites "beset
the house
round
about,
beating
on the
door,
and they
said
to . .
. the
master
of the
house,
'Bring
out the
man who
came
into
your
house,
that
we may
know
him'" (19:22). The
threat
of sodomitical
rape
unfolds
into
a horrifying
narrative
of sexual
violence
and national
vengeance
which
ultimately
recoils
on Equiano's
political
resistance
to the
institutions
and practices
which
enslaved
him. However,
before
exploring
this
problematic
I want
to establish
the
strange
way
in which
the
sailors'
taunt
impinges
on Equiano's
interpellation
of George
into
his
masochistic
reading
of Foxe.
-
The
sailors short
circuit Equiano's
masochistic
practice
by simply
telling George
that if the
Devil comes
to you, send
him to us
and we'll
take care
of him. In
other words,
the sailors
are offering
to protect
George from
precisely
the martyrdom
which drives
identification
with the
invisible
church. However,
the sailors'
taunt contains
a double
sign which
fully entraps
George. The "sons
of Belial" stand
as a figure
for Satan
in 2 Corinthians
6:15. The
sailors'
promise,
therefore,
forms a
loop: if
the Devil
comes to
you, send
him to those
who stand
in for the
Devil. In
this paradoxical
scenario
George is
shunted
from the
masochistic
scene and
hence denied
access
to the salvation
of the
invisible
church
which Equiano
has linked
to freedom
from the
bonds of
colonial
domination. George's
acceptance
of the
sailors
places
him in
a similar
position
to those
who accepted
the protection
of the
state during
the reign
of Queen
Mary,
for in
Foxe's
narrative
they too
misrecognized
the power
of the
ungodly
state.
Equiano's
response
is perfectly
apposite,
for he
argues
that "if
he and
these people
went to
hell together,
their
pains would
not make
his any
lighter" (204). By
refusing
to seek
pleasure
through
pain in
his lifetime,
George
is promised
not only
political
subjugation
in this
world,
but also
an eternity
of torment
in the
next.
-
Because
Equiano's
identification
with the
martyred figures
in Fox is
guaranteed
by his deployment
of George
in the position
of the King,
the sailors'
taunt effectively
destroys
Equiano's
masochistic
identification
by depriving
him of his
tormentor—of
his "sovereign" George. At
this point,
Equiano's
text takes
a deeply
unsettling
turn for
the masochistic
scene which
revolves
around the
reading
of The
Book of
Martyrs shifts
textual
loci. In
an extremely
subtle
manner,
Equiano
re-stages
his engagement
with George
using narrative
structures
derived
from Judges
19-21. This
means three
things. First,
that the
agent of
abasement
shifts
from George
the indigene
sovereign
to the "Sons
of Belial." Second,
that
Equiano's
phantasmatic
abasement
becomes
more
explicitly
sexualized
and
more
overtly
violent. And
third,
that
Equiano's
invocation
of
revenge
becomes
at once
more
pointed
and
more
ambivalent. In
order
to understand
this
latter
point
we need
to
return
to
the
moment
of
hospitality
from
the
earlier
masochistic
scene
and
examine
how
it is
restructured
to
allow
the
Judges
narrative
to
become
tropologically
active.
-
At
the core
of Equiano's
attempt to
convert George
one finds
a moment
of hospitality
very similar
both to that
of Judges
19 and to
that of the
sailors'
taunt, for
it is George
who comes
to Equiano's
cabin in
the middle
of the night
full of the
desire to "pray." I
have already
suggested
that Equiano's
self-construction
as the object
of George's
desire constitutes
the abasement
necessary
for Equiano's
masochistic
identification
with the
invisible
church. But
the allusion
to Judges
allows
us to be
much more
specific
about that
abasement. In
Judges
19 the
master
of the
house offers
his daughter
and the
Levite's
wife as
a way of
saving
his guest
from sodomitical
rape. When
the wife
is cast
out, she
is raped
to the
point
of death
and dumped
on the
threshold
of the
house. In
response,
the Levite
cuts
the body
of his
wife into
twelve
pieces
and sends
a piece
to each
of the
tribes
of Israel
as a
call to
arms against
the Benjaminites. Mieke
Bal
emphasizes
that
the text
is ambiguous
about
the raped
wife's
condition
upon
her return. As
she
states,
the
text "refrains
from
stating
whether
the woman
is dead
or alive" (218). This
detail
is crucial
because
it
suggests
that
the
Levite
may
have
killed
his
wife
in order
to elicit
vengeance. As
we
will
see
this
ambiguity
has
significant
ramifications
for
Equiano's
text.
-
When
George comes
to Equiano's
door, the
narrative
immediately
establishes
a visitor-host
relation
in which the
shelter Equiano
offers is
that of the
invisible
church posited
in The
Book of
Martyrs. Significantly,
both The
Book of
Martyrs and
the Book
of Judges
emphasize
that loyalty
to God
is necessary
to success
as a nation. By
referring
to the
sailors
as the "Sons
of Belial," Equiano
subtly
figures
the
sailor's
threat
to George's
conversion
as the
threat
of sodomitical
rape. The
resolution
of
that
threat,
however,
is extremely
complex
and
requires
that
one
recognize
some
important
constitutive
elements
of shipboard
society. First,
since
the
ship
is
an
all
male
zone,
women
exist
only
as "ideas" of
alterity—their
bodily
difference
is
nowhere
in
evidence. What
this
means
is
that
the
primary
corporeal
encoding
of
difference
on
the
ship
is
that
of
race. In
the
terms
set
forth
in
Judges
19,
there
is
no
sexual
other
to
be
offered
to
the
rapacious "Sons
of
Belial." In
light
of
the
earlier
masochistic
scenario,
could
we
not
argue
that
|
