Narrative as Needle and Thread

Abstract

"Narrative as Needle and Thread" examines how Frederick Douglass's three autobiographies—Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881 and revised in 1892)—function as a form of psychological healing from trauma. Drawing on trauma theory, it is argued that Douglass's autobiographical revisions represent not merely literary refinement but a deliberate strategy for processing trauma that parallels modern therapeutic approaches. Douglass's narrative control developed alongside his growing social and political autonomy. Through close analysis of key traumatic episodes, Douglass, to a certain extent, transforms traumatic memory into integrated narrative memory across his autobiographical revisions. Rather than viewing recovery as requiring complete narrative closure, it is argued that Douglass's work exemplifies how healing from historical trauma involves sustaining productive tension between remembering and forgetting, integration and resistance, personal healing, and collective witness.