Although Tom regards this as a mask of religious identity (pg. 256), he fears racial, not theological conversion. No longer would he have the face that would allow him to live freely in both American and European society. He begs the …show more content…
Although there was never any explicit reference by one another, there is much evidence that Melville and Douglas influenced each other. In 1845, Douglass was delivering antislavery lectures, and passages from his Narrative were being reprinted in the Evening Journal at the same time that Melville was writing Typee (Kane). Also in 1848 Douglass reprinted a passage from Melville’s Typee, titled “Tattooing,” in his newspaper the North Star (Kane). This reprinting may have led him to ask after Douglass and conceivably seek out his