Читать книгу Constructing the Self. Essays on Southern Life-Writing онлайн

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But by overlaying the two images—Washington as alliance builder as well as defender of the dividing line—one arrives at a more rich and complicated portrait of Washington, one resembling that which has emerged in much recent scholarship. With this more complicated portrait in mind, I want to explore how Washington constructed himself in his autobiographical writings, particularly Up From Slavery and Working with the Hands, as well as to complicate that portrait by bringing in another image, the lever, to suggest that Washington, all the while that he was publicly defending the South’s dividing line, was at the same time subversively attempting to pry it apart. The subversive work of the lever is most clearly seen in Washington’s discussions of the achievements people gain by working with their hands and by making things. To understand this subversive work—how in the hands of Washington handwork and making became a powerful tool to unhinge the line of segregation—we need first to establish the context in which this destabilizing work takes place, how it fits within the broad strategies Washington used to construct himself in his autobiographies.