Meghan Gwinn

CORE I - Perez de Mendiola

10 October 2015
The Privilege Or Lackthereof to Choose Conventionality or Individuality

The need to behave according to socially acceptable norms has existed over centuries
worth of time. Whether assimilation is necessary for individuals to thrive or simply enables a
more interconnected community, conformity permeates societies around the world. Although
there are many people-- whether knowingly or unknowingly-- who comply to convention, there
are others who are compelled to experience life from outside the confines of conformity. The
autobiography Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave and Jean
Genets The Thiefs Journal both address issues of conventionality. Genet chooses to resist
molding to twentieth century French standards while Douglass acquiesces to his enslavement so
both individuals, respectively, can reconstruct the overarching perceptions projected onto them.
Genet and Douglass, while their varying scopes of experience give them dissimilar
motives, command their written language to indulge in the perception of the abject. In the
context of both Genets and Douglass writings, subjecthood refers to the white, empowered
individuals in each society. In binary terms, the abject is defined by everything that is not the
subject. Moreover, the abject consistently functions to validate the subjects; it is a fragile system.
In The Thiefs Journal, Jean Genet is a white cisgender male born into poverty. His gender and
French origins place him in a variety of privileges in French society. In addition to his
appearance, he also benefits from his writing style and flowery method of communication.
Contextually, the French people pride themselves on their mastery of the French language which
simultaneously allows them to discriminate against individuals who cannot demonstrate an equal
or greater level of proficiency. Accordingly, although Genet could easily claim subjecthood in his
society due to his appearance and finesse in his native language, he chooses to identify with

Meghan Gwinn
CORE I - Perez de Mendiola
10 October 2015
abjection. He rejects his privileges in order to embrace criminality and his queer identity. Genet
journals that he knows very little about his familial background and uses his vague history as a
tool of empowerment. He explains the uncertainty of [his] origin allowed [him] to interpret it
Abandoned by [his] family, [he already felt it was natural to aggravate this condition by a
preferences for boys, and this preference by theft, and theft by crime or a complacent attitude in
regard to crime. [He] thus resolutely rejected a world which had rejected [him] (Genet 87).
Genet essentially thinks himself like a blank novel in which he can wholly celebrate the sordid,
otherwise undesirable traits. Furthermore, Genet, in womens clothing, accompanies Pedro on an
outing in which they cross paths with a woman stranger. Upon their meeting she smiled at
[Genet] sweetly, with indulgence, and unable to contain herself any longer, she asked [him]: Do
you like men? (68-9). By existing abjectly, Genet is able to feed the subjects curiosity and its
need to fetishize Genets identity as a queer man. The womans perception of Genet aligns itself
with the fashion in which he self-identifies, thus signifying his success in resisting his implicit
advantages as a white man.
On the other hand, Douglass writes from abjection on the inside of a society that thrives
on systemic oppression. Douglass writes abjectly-- in spite of himself-- in order to appeal to the
subjects, the white population. Simultaneously, however, the way Douglass commands his
language still enables self-empowerment as he becomes the subject over his own life throughout
his own anecdotes. Unlike Genet, Douglass decision to write as the abject stems from a purpose
beyond self gratification. Douglass elevates the white populace to subjecthood in order to appeal
to its sympathies. Indeed, in Douglass era, the literature of black writers routinely forfeited
honesty concerning the savagery of their oppressors out of forced sensitivity towards white
audiences. In many ways, it parallels Douglass recount of the exchange between the colored

Meghan Gwinn
CORE I - Perez de Mendiola
10 October 2015
man and Colonel Lloyd, his master, on the road. The colored man expresses his dissatisfaction
with the quality of life under Colonel Lloyds care, unknowing that the man before him was
Colonel Lloyd himself. Thinking nothing of the exchange, the colored man continues with his
business only to be shackled and sold to a Georgia trader in following weeks (Douglass 126).
Collectively, the oppressive community wasnt receptive to the cruel reality of slavery and would
punish the enslaved peoples to effectively silence them for offering contradictory ideas to
established norms. Thus, slaves would suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of
telling it in attempt to avoid the harsh retaliation from their oppressors (127). In regards to
literature, the content of Douglass and other writers required official approval from a collection
of respectable white men in order to be perceived as factual and unelaborated. Through
coerced self-censorship, these writers mitigated the physical and emotional violence they
endured in order to have the opportunity to publicise their experiences. Frederick Douglass
navigates an era in which he is constantly silenced and forced into abjection. The reader must
consider what Douglass desires to write versus what he cant blatantly illustrate in his
autobiography. In particular, the two hour altercation between Douglass and Mr. Covey, a farmer
who was loaned Douglass for a year, comes to mind. The brawl successfully instills cowardice
into Covey and, most notably, serves as the turning-point in [his] career as a slave
[Douglass] now resolved that, however long [he] might remain a slave in form, the day had
passed forever when [he] could be a slave in fact (188-89). Despite the fights significance in
Douglass ascension into self-recognized subjecthood, the autobiographer dedicates hardly two
pages worth of text to the details of a lengthy struggle in which he injures a white man who fails
to reciprocate the same beating. Douglass is unable to expand in detail on his fight because he
must avoid offending his white audience. The brawl is a moment in his anecdote in which white

Meghan Gwinn
CORE I - Perez de Mendiola
10 October 2015
supremacy is dislodged from its pedestal and a black man, who is perceived abjectly through the
subjects lens, asserts his newfound power.
For differing reasons, both Genet and Douglass appear abjectly in order to resist their
individual societies. Jean Genet, functioning within a society that isnt inherently against him,
embraces abjection for a sense of self satisfaction. Conversely, Frederick Douglass appeals to
white subjects through his identification as abject in order to attain visibility and sympathy in a
system built to suppress his humanity. Both writers tactics enable them to achieve their
intentions; Jean Genet and Frederick Douglass successfully alter the way in which their subjects
acknowledge them.