In reference to Hegel's story of the bondman and lord, Butler writes "If the object defines him, reflects back what he is, is the signatory text by which he acquires a sense of who he is, and if those objects are relentlessly sacrificed, the he is a relentlessly self-sacrificing being" (40). Someone like the bondsdsman will only recognize his identity if he also acknowledges the bleakness of his life. His ownership of anything is a fleeting one. Nothing tangible can ever define him because he ultimately has no control over the object. One's willingness to accecpt this fate is fueled by the law "which, paradoxically, reconstituted the fear as fear of the law" (43). This fear of law has obviously been a reoccuring theme throughout our texts. There is an interesting connection between this and Nietzsche's belief that freedom "is to be found in the pleasure taken in afflicting pain, a pleasure taken in afflicting pain on oneself in the service of, in the name of morality" (75). Law is assumed to be the word of morality. Therefore, one could look at the bondman's unhappy consciousness as in fact Nietzsche's perception of freedom. It is of course also the "origin of bad conscience" so he is certainly not better off than he was before.