Slave Narrative and Black Autobiography - Richard Wright's "Black Boy" and James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography
The slave narrative maintains a unique station in modern literature. Unlike any other body of literature, it provides us with a first-hand account of institutional racially-motivated human bondage in an ostensibly democratic society. As a reflection on the author, these narratives were the first expression of humanity by a group of people in a society where antediluvian pseudo-science had deemed them to be mere animals. Taken together, the narratives of former black slaves in the Antebellum South provide us with one of the largest bodies of literature written by former slaves in history.
Although these narratives remain but a perspective of slavery, it is important to note that their reception upon publication was divided and, prior to emancipation, extremely partisan. Without exception, former slaves had their accuracy and their intelligence called into question by a southern establishment…...
mlaGates Henry Louis,"THE SIGNIFYING MONKEY"
Mackethan Lucinda H.,"VERSION and INVERSION of the SLAVE NARRATOR's
QUEST for VOICE." CLA Journal 32(2):123-147,1988 DEC.
Slave narratives and abolitionist books share much in common in terms of their descriptions of the institution of slavery, how slavery is entrenched in American society, and how slaves struggle to overcome the psychological humiliation and physical degradation that slavery entails. Frederick Douglass's (1845) Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs's (1861) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl both capture the daily cruelty and overall theme of slavery. These two slave narratives present a poignant picture of what it was like to live as a slave, showing also how slaves attempted to escape. Douglass and Jacobs also show how slaves managed to keep their families as together as possible, struggling against all odds to do so because of the systematic means by which whites enabled and even encouraged the dismantling of African-American families.
However, there are some core differences between Douglass's (1845) and Jacobs's (1861) narratives…...
mlaReferences
Douglass, F. (1845). Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Retrieved online: http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/
"Harriet Beecher Stowe's Life," (n.d.). Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Retrieved online: http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/hbs/
Jacobs, H. (1861). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Retrieved online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/jacobs.html
" (Fort, 1)
To an extent, freedom could not be experienced until it was understood. And yet, the utopian multiracialism that we might like to attribute to the post Civil ar era would hardly be accurate. Instead, the period of Reconstruction bred hardship for the nation, for the South and especially for freed slaves. As Fountain Hughes tells in his narrative, "we had no home, you know. e was jus' turned out like a lot of cattle. You know how they turn cattle out in a pasture? ell after freedom, you know, colored people didn' have nothing." (Fort, 1) This is a compelling point to close on as it dispels the myth that slaves were immediately granted opportunities comporting to those of their white counterparts. The end of the Civil ar would be the beginning of a new struggle for identity and a foothold in the context of freedom. The 'slave…...
mlaWorks Cited:
Fort, Bruce. (1998). Index of Narratives. American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology. Online at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html
Internal Struggle for Identity and Equality in African-American Literature
The story of the African-American journey through America's history is one of heartbreaking desperation and victimization, but also one of amazing inspiration and victory. Any story of the journey that fails to include these seemingly diametric components of the African-American journey is incomplete. However, African-American culture reflects both the progress of the African-American community, its external struggle to achieve equality, and its internal struggle to acquire identity after displacement and forced deprivation of access to native culture. This is particularly true in African-American literature, which, taken as a whole, paints a broad portrait of African-American life, encompassing struggle, strife, conquest, sacrifice and triumph. African-American literature has been a way for African-American authors to express their own feelings about identity and struggle, but, perhaps even more importantly; it has provided a catalyst for broader discussion about those feelings on a cultural level.…...
mlaWorks Cited
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House. 2009.
Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain. New York: Vintage International. 2013. Kindle.
Douglass, Frederick. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.
Gutenberg. 2006. Web.
slave narrative maintains a unique station in modern literature. Unlike any other body of literature, it provides us with a first-hand account of institutional racially-motivated human bondage in an ostensibly democratic society. As a reflection on the author, these narratives were the first expression of humanity by a group of people in a society where antediluvian pseudo-science had deemed them to be mere animals. These works, although they provide us a keen insight into the nature of the period, all but disappeared following emancipation and the end of the Civil War. As black liberty was thought to be a vindicated cause, the accounts of former slaves lost their general appeal and were party only to a cultural heritage attended to only by other freed black slaves. However, black writers of both fiction and non-fiction in the 20th came to reflect the work of Frederick Douglas and others in the…...
mlaMoody and Malcolm X have radically different philosophies: whereas Moody believes that blacks can overcome oppression and must struggle for equality, Malcolm X thinks that blacks should estrange themselves from anything white. Over the years, one mentality (the convergence mentality) has come to be thought of as mainstream whereas X's thoughts have become increasingly marginalized.
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), 121-38.
Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965
Not only does he capture the essence of India, he gives the reader an idea of the people, their food, and their culture, all together. In this, the language of his work is like a travelogue, and so, it combines many diverse types of literature into one compact and yet compelling whole.
Equiano fills the book with descriptive language like this, and powerful language, too.
In conclusion, this slave narrative is extremely special for a number of reasons. Equiano's language and experiences are vivid and compelling. Not only do they urge the reader to turn the pages and find out more about this remarkable man's life, they make the reader take a long look at their own lives and what they may have accomplished. Equiano was truly a self-made man who rose from the humblest beginnings to make a great and quite successful life for himself. In addition, he left a…...
mlaReferences
Equiano, Olaudah. "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African." I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave Narratives, 1770-1849. Ed. Yuval Taylor. Vol. 1. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1999. 29-180.
Classic Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano
The narrative of the former slave Olaudah Equiano may seem unfamiliar in its construction and ideology to many readers familiar with only popular slave narratives, such as the narrative of Frederick Douglass. Unlike the narratives of slaves who came of age only within the institution of bondage, Equiano was born free, in the land of Africa. Equiano himself was born as an upper-class member of an African royal family, and knew what it was like to be of a privileged caste, and even to regard himself as superior to other Africans and to whites with which his tribe came into contact with.
However, all of this changed once Equiano was sold into slavery. Equiano was subject to the same privations upon the Middle Passage as those individual Africans who came from less privileged circumstances. In fact, Equiano endured some of the most rigorous conditions of…...
Equiano (Benin, 1745-1799): Travels ( slave Narrative). eport written Ductive format. Also research
Assimilation
In many ways large and small, Equiano's Travels: The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, is a remarkably fascinating read. This autobiographical account of a African slaves triumph over the forced bondage of chattel slavery that eventually results in his becoming an internationalist abolitionist of both slavery and the slave trade that propels it is intended to be a read as a victorious story of survival against odds that were decidedly decimating. Yet despite the fact that Equiano was able to extricate himself from such inauspicious beginnings to eventually aid others who have been entrapped in such noxious circumstances, there is a subtle undercurrent that runs throughout his Interesting Narrative that is also supported by the text and as widely important as, or perhaps even more important than, the aforementioned motif. In order…...
mlaReferences
Ali, L., Siblon, J. (No date). "Relationships and Religion." Black Presence. Retrieved from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/relationships.htm
Carey, Brychan (2005). "Olaudah Equiano: A Critical Biography" Retrieved from http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/biog.htm
Equiano, O. (2008). The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Hogarth Blake Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.hh-bb.com/equiano.pdf
Gates, H.L. (1989). The Signifying Monkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
To illustrate his point in the speech, Douglass also uses narrative techniques similar to the ones he uses in his autobiography. Douglass tells a story of how a minister had all the black members of the congregation stand by the door while the whites received the communion. The minister implied that it was God's order that blacks be treated in that way. In another anecdote, Douglass explains that to racist Christians the Kingdom of Heaven is "like a net," that leaves out those with "black scales." Douglass describes a story of a young black girl who received holy Communion. The deacon reluctantly passed the cup to the black girl, but the white woman next to her stormed out of the church. "When the cup containing the precious blood which had been shed for all, came to her, she rose in disdain, and walked out of the church. Such was…...
mlaReferences
Douglass, F. (1841). The church and prejudice. Speech delivered at the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society, November 4, 1841. Retrieved online: http://www.frederickdouglass.org/speeches/index.html
Douglass, F. (1845). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Retrieved online: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/
Christianity Upon Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative And Frederick Douglass's Slave Narrative
Both A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass are first-person nonfictional accounts of the individual's encounter with an 'other' that captures them and holds them hostage. Rowlandson's 17th century narrative tells of her abduction by Native Americans during King Phillips' ar and her eventual return to white civilization. Douglass was born a slave in the 19th century American South and inhabited the 'double consciousness' of African-Americans. Unlike Rowlandson, he had no memory of a world in which he was a social equal, rather he was told virtually from birth that he was inferior and belonged to another human being as property, not to himself. Both authors use religion as an important connecting thread in their narratives but Rowlandson views her captivity and release as an example of…...
mlaWorks Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. 1845. Web. 15 Dec 2015.
Rowlandson, Mary. A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.
Project Gutenberg. 2009. Web. 15 Dec 2015.
(Gates)
What was surprising or affected you in the book?
The most surprising aspect of the book is that it highlights the challenges that are impacting everyone. This is accomplished through showing the brutality and the sense of unconcern about what is happening. For example, in one section Douglass illustrates how female slaves are often victimized by their slave masters or relatives. This is taking place through showing how many are often brutally raped and forced to deal with these abuses continuously. These areas are shocking, as it is showing why slavery must be destroyed at all costs. This is surprising as Douglass will talk about these issues in great detail. (Gates)
Comment about the incidents related to slavery in that book.
The incidents related to slavery are illustrating how the slave master and society have a sense of indifference. This is because they do not care about what happens to slaves and…...
mlaReferences
Gates, Henry. Classic Slave Narratives. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.
In conclusion, these narratives paint a vivid picture of slave life from the 17th and 18th centuries, and illustrate why slavery was such a vicious and evil institution. Without these narratives, a historical view of slavery would be incomplete, and they illustrate a distressing and immoral element of American history. Slavery differed between the North and the South, but it shared many common characteristics, as slave narratives continue to illustrate.
eferences
Abdur-ahman, Aliyyah I. "The Strangest Freaks of Despotism": Queer Sexuality in Antebellum African-American Slave Narratives." African-American eview 40, no. 2 (2006): 223+.
Barrett, Lindon. "African-American Slave Narratives: Literacy, the Body, Authority." American Literary History 7, no. 3 (1995): 415-442.
Bland, Sterling Lecater, ed. African-American Slave Narratives: An Anthology. Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001..
Bland, Sterling Lecater, ed. African-American Slave Narratives: An Anthology. Vol. 3. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Clayton, onnie W. Mother Wit: The Ex-Slave Narratives of the Louisiana Writers' Project. New…...
mlaReferences
Abdur-Rahman, Aliyyah I. "The Strangest Freaks of Despotism": Queer Sexuality in Antebellum African-American Slave Narratives." African-American Review 40, no. 2 (2006): 223+.
Barrett, Lindon. "African-American Slave Narratives: Literacy, the Body, Authority." American Literary History 7, no. 3 (1995): 415-442.
Bland, Sterling Lecater, ed. African-American Slave Narratives: An Anthology. Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001..
Bland, Sterling Lecater, ed. African-American Slave Narratives: An Anthology. Vol. 3. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.
This book is important because so much of black history centers on the experience of being a slave, rather than the experience of living together with others slaves and the development of culture and tradition. This book shows how black American culture really originated, and that the lives of slaves were incredibly hard, but enriching in their own right. The author's exhaustive research gives the reader a real glimpse into the everyday life of slaves, and indicates that they had a rich culture, appreciated their families, hoped desperately for freedom, and lived desperately hard lives. Even though their lives were difficult, they held on to hope and faith, which gave them the courage to continue. His research brings the slaves to life and makes the reader appreciate just how strong they had to be to survive.
This is a very interesting and adsorbing book. eading a slave's autobiography is one…...
mlaReferences
Blassingame, John W. (1977). The slave community: Plantation life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press.
Slavery
The American government was directly complicit in slavery and passed a number of laws that supported the institution. One of the most severe and notorious of those laws was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Law highlighted the vast gulf between the slaveholding and free states of the union, leading eventually to the Civil War. However, the law also impacted the lives of countless people who attempted to escape slavery or those facilitated their passage. In her memoirs, Harriet Jacobs writes about the Fugitive Slave Law. The author calls those who enforced the law "cruel human bloodhounds" who were no better than slave owners themselves (Jacobs 68). To properly understand slavery, it becomes essential to comprehend the entirety of the system that supported it.
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs does not spare the North from its participation in the subjugation of people of…...
mlaReferences
"Fugitive Slaves!."
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Child, Lydia Marie (Ed.). 1802-1880. Electronic edition accessed
He was not just some compassionate liberal advocating freedom for the oppressed, he was an actual victim of the system who had risen above it. This strengthened his leadership abilities even further because he was able to use his personal experiences to relate the horrors of slavery to those who had only read about it.
When he tells about the cruelty of the slave overseer Mr. Gore, stating "His savage barbarity was equaled only by the consummate coolness with which he committed the grossest and most savage deeds upon the slaves under his charge" (p. 356), one cannot helped but be moved and outraged. There is no denying that his experiences were as horrendous as Harriet's. But there is also no denying that the male and female experiences of slavery were different. The fact is, the male and female experiences in just about any walk of life are different, no…...
There are a number of fantastic slave narratives that really describe the experiences of people in slavery. However, there is a problem with most of these narratives. Written by former slaves, these narratives are going to represent a rarity among slaves because their authors could read and write, while teaching a slave to read or write was punishable under many slave codes. Therefore, we strongly suggest looking at a more comprehensive collection of slave narratives. Fortunately, the Works Progress Administration compiled slave narratives under a few different programs, most notably the Federal Writer’s Project. ....
To tackle a three-page essay on the meaning of freedom for enslaved people in the United States, it is very important to keep in mind that there was no single idea of freedom. The condition of slaves varied tremendously throughout the United States. Some slaves lived near urban areas and had relatively high amounts of personal autonomy as well as exposure to free people of color, while other slaves were in isolation on plantations and may not ever encounter free people or color or even regularly encounter slaves held captive on other plantations. In addition, men, women,....
Genre theory refers to the use of familiar themes and ideas as a way of signaling to the audience what to expect from a work of fiction. Genre theory can be used in various types of fiction and is often discussed when talking about both literature and movies. Genre theory can provide a good springboard for analysis of a particular work, because works can exemplify genres, deviate from genres, or even flip genres completely upside down. As fictional works have developed, genres have become more specific. Genres were initially very broad, both....
I. Introduction
II. Educational Program Outlines
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