ABSTRACT
When many think of Frederick Douglass within the existentialist philosophical tradition, they think about the philosophical categories of subjectivity and freedom and search in Douglass’ work for these themes. They often point out the contradictions that immediately stand out involving an enslaved man writing about subjectivity and freedom, and remark on the general heroism necessary for such deliberations. For most, the discussion centres around the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave where Douglass details his fight with slave breaker Edward Covey. Yet, these authors do not offer a reading of Douglass’ existentialism through a rendering of his literary or aesthetic choices of language in his works, most notably how Douglass enacts subjectivity and freedom through the literary choice of opacity. In this chapter, I will argue that a key to understanding Douglass’ Narrative is to read it alongside his often-overlooked work, ‘The Heroic Slave.’ In reading these works together, a different existential rendering emerges, one that is not solely concerned with subjectivity and freedom. In addition to these themes, I want to argue that what is revealed are the ways in which Douglass’ works are concerned with the narrative construction of origin, framed within the existential question, ‘how does one write the origin of one that has been refused an origin?’
