D. Quentin (Daniel Quentin) Miller - "A Tyrannically Democratic Force": The Symbolic and Cultural Function of Clothing in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie - Legacy 19:2 Legacy 19.2 (2002) 121-136 "A Tyrannically Democratic Force": The Symbolic and Cultural Function of Clothing in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie Quentin Miller Suffolk University In his study On Human Finery, Quentin Bell observes that "fashion is at best a tyrannically democratic force" (63). The phrase "tyrannically democratic" is paradoxical, of course, since it associates the idea of an absolute leader with the idea of majority rule. In early nineteenth-century America, the statement would have appeared especially paradoxical because the recent American Revolution was widely interpreted as the triumph of democracy over tyranny. Bell suggests, though, that, at least where clothing is concerned, democracy can be a form of tyranny. When a society imposes an official or unofficial dress code on its members and then attempts to impose that dress on other cultures, it is acting as a tyrant; subtly but aggressively, it is insisting on its own rightness and superiority. A strong cultural belief in the propriety of uniform dress may indicate a deeper conviction that one's ideology and customs are right. Bell's observation calls into question the degree of freedom posited by democracy, which can indeed become tyranny unless it contains a measure of respect for cultural or individual...