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Michele Sharik
Dr. Lankford
English 48A – Essay Week 7 (Equiano, Wheatley, Tataki)
November 6, 2009
DISSONANCE AND RESOLUTION
In music it is often said, “The difference between a wrong note and a dissonance is
resolution.” Thomas Jefferson is regarded by most Americans as one of the great Founding
Fathers of American democracy, the man who wrote "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal," and who passionately believed in individual Liberty—and yet he
owned several black slaves. According to Ronald Takaki, Jefferson was aware of his own
cognitive dissonance (the simultaneous holding of two or more contradictory beliefs) and even
though he did not free his own slaves, he did feel “profoundly ambivalent toward slavery" (69)
and even "supported an effort for the emancipation of slaves" (69). Jefferson's attitude is typical
for the time and so his cognitive dissonance is a prime example of the wrong notes struck by
18th-century white American society.
Cognitive dissonance, however, “can be a useful tool in overcoming conflict,” according
to Phil Barker of the Conflict Research Consortium at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In
his September 2003 paper “Cognitive Dissonance,” Barker writes, “Cognitive dissonance is a
basic tool for education in general. Creating dissonance can induce behavior or attitude change.
By creating cognitive dissonance, you force people to react. . . . By introducing cognitive
dissonance (pointing out the conflict between what people know and do), [one] can encourage a
change in thought or action.” Both Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley used cognitive
dissonance in this way—as a tool to convince whites that the conflict between their stated
Christian beliefs and their actions towards slaves and slavery required resolution—Wheatley
with more subtlety and nuance than Equiano, but with no less force.
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The very fact of Wheatley’s and Equiano’s existence as writers was itself a source of
cognitive dissonance. Barker writes, “disarming behaviors are another way to create cognitive
dissonance. This is done by simply learning what the other side thinks of or expects of you, and
then doing something very different,” and can be particularly effective “if the behavior is visible
enough that it cannot be ignored.” Wheatley and Equiano were both highly visible people.
According to the Norton Anthology, Wheatley “was the object of considerable public attention”
(751) for her “literary gifts, intelligence, and piety” (751). Likewise, Equiano’s Interesting
Narrative “found an enthusiastic American audience” (674) and “went through eight more
editions” (674) in the 1790’s. Neither could be ignored by the American public, and thus both
were a source of cognitive dissonance. Whether or not Jefferson ever actually read any of
Equiano’s or Wheatley’s writing is unknown to me, but he probably knew of Equiano’s antislavery efforts and definitely did know of Wheatley’s writing. According to Takaki, “Jefferson
caustically commented: ‘Religion, indeed, has produced a Phyllis Whately [sic]; but it could not
produce a poet” (73). This reaction is typical of “perhaps the most important way people deal
with cognitive dissonance,” according to Barker. “If someone is presented with information that
is dissonant from what they already know, the easiest way to deal with this new information is to
ignore it, refuse to accept it, or simply avoid that type of information in general.” Clearly,
Jefferson did not want his belief in the inferiority of blacks (Takaki 71) to be challenged by
having to admit that blacks could indeed write and think as well as—or better than—whites.
This is one way in which Jefferson—and by extension, the rest of American society at the time—
refuses to resolve his dissonance.
It is important to remember that much of Wheatley’s published work was written while
she was still a slave. In fact, she was one of only three African Americans who did so, the other
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two being Jupiter Hammon and George Moses Horton (Sondra O’Neale “A Slave’s Subtle War:
Phillis Wheatley’s Use of Biblical Myth and Symbol” 2003). As a slave, her writing not only
had to be approved by her owners before publication but also “carefully censored to ensure that it
was in no way incendiary” (O’Neale). Being a free man, Equiano was under no such constraints
and could instead write as he saw fit (though both Wheatley’s and Equiano’s work was first
published in England, showing that they were both ultimately at the mercy of their publishers, as
many writers are still today).
So, while Equiano could boldly convict his white readers with “O, ye nominal Christians!
might not an African ask you—Learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all
men as you would men do unto you?” (686), Wheatley had to be much more subtle in her
approach. At the end of her poem “To the University of Cambridge, in New England,” she
writes of sin and warns: “Ye blooming plants of human race divine, / An Ethiop tells you ‘tis
your greatest foe” (27-29). By using the term “Ethiop,” Wheatley identifies herself—and all
blacks—with the rich Biblical history of Ethiopia, and thereby gives blacks a connection to a
people who were known for their “piety and royalty” (O’Neale). In this way Wheatley hopes to
subtly convict whites that they have, as O’Neale puts it, “enslaved the heirs of biblical patriarchs:
descendents of Moses and his Ethiopian wife (Num. 12:1), of King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba—Sheba is an Old Testament term for Ethiopia (1 Kings 10:1-13; 2 Chron. 9:1-12). . . .”
Both Equiano with his “African” and Wheatley with her “Ethiop” claimed a place of moral
superiority over whites and, in doing so, hoped to force whites to confront their cognitive
dissonance and resolve it by eliminating slavery.
After Wheatley was released from slavery, her anti-slavery beliefs became more explicit
in her writing. In her letter “To Rev. Samson Occom, New London, Connecticut” on “The
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Natural Rights of Negroes,” she writes, “in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle,
which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by
the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us” (764). Even
though Wheatley knew that the letter would be “published in several New England newspapers
(Norton 763), she was unafraid to make her use of cognitive dissonance known: “I desire not for
their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and
Actions are so diametrically opposite” (764).
Unfortunately, neither Jefferson nor American society resolved their cognitive dissonance
within the lifetime of either Equiano or Wheatley. In fact, we still struggle with many of the
same issues of race and minority status today. Maybe someday we will be able to resolve our
wrong notes into a harmonious consonance.