From Frederick Douglass to Herman Melville — and Beyond

From Frederick Douglass to Herman Melville — and Beyond




November 25, 2009


Interview with Professor Rolando Jorif.

In Herman Melvilles 1886 novella, Billy Budd, the title character—a crewman aboard a British naval ship—is hanged for the impulsive murder of a hostile officer. His fellow sailors react to his death in a spirit of forgiveness and communal harmony. Ever since he first read the book, Rolando Jorif had been intrigued by its strange ending.

The sailors seemed to have an appreciation for Billys death that went beyond the understanding of most readers, says Jorif, an assistant professor of English. I found that my own reaction was the same as I had to the end of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in which Douglass, a famed orator, writer and ex-slave, rises to address a potentially hostile white audience to tell his story.

To Jorif, the fact that the conclusions of both works moved him in the same way merited further examination and led to a book published this past summer by Edwin Mellen Press. The title: How Slave Narratives Influenced American Literature: A Source for Herman Melvilles Billy Budd.

Linking sailors with slaves
In his narrative, which was written in 1845, Douglass talks at length about American individuality and the desire of Americans to fulfill themselves in their own lives, Jorif says. That was a main theme of Melvilles as well, and he returned to it in the 1880s when he wrote Billy Budd. He refers often to the slaves condition, compares the sailors lot to that of the slaves, and uses the language of abolitionist literature to speak for the emancipation of the sailor. Early in the novella, Billy, like many sailors, is impressed—or seized and drafted—into service in the British navy, where he is forced to serve the interests of British imperialism, says Jorif.

The slave narrative, whether it applied to the black experience or that of the British naval crewman, was a theme that had preoccupied Melville even in earlier works, Jorif says. The title character of Redburn goes to Liverpool, where he learns that his fathers commercial enterprises are closely linked to the slave trade. That knowledge creates a conflict between father and son so that the essential transfer of experience is infected by the slave trade. And in Moby Dick, Melville likens the whalers on board the Pequod to blacks on a slave ship.

Refuting slavery in any form
Jorif, who was born in Panama, emigrated to the U.S. with his parents in 1954. After a year of college in the late 1960s, he dropped out and spent the next 25 years traveling, reading, and pursuing a career in ballet. He later returned to his studies at Hunter College, earning a B.A. in French and English. How the Slave Narratives Influenced American Literature is derived from his CUNY Graduate School dissertation.

Jorifs book ends with what he characterizes as a total refutation of slavery—and the notion that anyone can willingly enter into slavery to another person. The fact is, he says, slavery is impossible for anyone to accept as long as they have any sense of themselves. Thats what these two men—one historical, the other fictional—argue. Its a point that must still be argued today.

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