Kiara Marmolejos

The way in which Marlene Nourbese Philip’s poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative are similar is through their reflection of the self in the face of oppression. In Douglass’ narrative, we view how learning to read and write empowered Douglass to identify himself even though his identity was stripped away at birth. In the first couple of pages in his work he claims “A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood.” He describes his pain when he thinks about his unknown history. This is directly related to Phillips poem in which she states “ English is my mother tongue. English is my father tongue. A father tongue is a foreign language. Therefore English is a foreign language not a mother language. I have no mother tongue, no mother to tongue, no tongue to mother, to mother-tongue me, and therefore must be dumb tounged down” She expresses how the English language is a constant reminder of how her true identity was ripped away from her just like Douglass. Her pain is shown when she says “I have a dumb tongue, tongue dumb. Dumb dumb tongue”. This line of the poem shows how Phillips exists as a reflection of the oppressor. Phillips uses wordplay but her poem goes beyond literature technique. This “search” for words can be related to her “search “ for her identity or mother tongue. She searches for the origin of the word mother in order to find the origin of the self. She continues on to repeat “mother tongue, mater tongue, moder tongue, ma tongue”. These words are not broken words, rather they are different ways to say mother in different languages such as Latin(mater) and chinese(ma). Aside from the pain expressed in this poem and in Douglass’ work, the positive side of the language can also be seen. The way Phillip uses many different languages in the poem can be seen as a unifying concept and the way in which Douglass uses language to uplift himself is another positive outcome of the English language. Both Douglass and Phillip use the English language in a powerful way to express emotions buried within the self and about the self identity that they have had to form all on their own. This is extremely emotional because they have had to develop and express themselves in the language of the oppressor in order to finally have a voice.