In many startling ways “Push” is similar to the narratives we have read, but in others it is significantly different. What is most interesting, however, is how those similarities and differences meet, meld and merge.
The most obvious difference is the language and content of the novel “Push.” Jacobs and Douglass would certainly not have directly confronted issues of incest and rape as Precious does. Jacobs’s mere allusion to rape was considered too racy in her time. 150 years later Sapphire is able to blanket her pages in expletives and shocking content.
Furthermore, Jacobs, Wright, and Douglass’s memoirs had the characteristics of an exercise of the intellect whose well-crafted presentation demonstrated their intellectual equality, thus validating their assertions. The novel “Push” not only uses racy language, but also uses it badly, omitting punctuation and littering the text with incorrect spellings. However, despite the questionable grammar, good readers read between the lines and they hear Precious’s powerful, creative voice, just like we heard that of the more polished Jacobs, Wright and Douglass. It also suggests that something so flawed, can still be beautiful.
And finally, “Push” is fiction, while our other texts have all been autobiographical. How does this change how we read and interpret Sapphire’s text? Is it somehow less real and thus less powerful? If not, what elements of fiction lend this story credibility equal to that of a memoir? And what if this is not about credibility at all? What effect does this narrative technique have on us, as readers?
What may be more interesting are the similarities in the novel “Push” to other course content. For instance, Precious’s assertion that “It’s something about being a nigger ain’t color. This nurse same as me. A lot of black people with nurse cap or big car or light skin same as me but don’t know it” (11). This sounds an awful lot like Trip in “Glory.” After more than 150 years of African-American literature this character type still persists and still carries great resonance. That is a depressing thought — after 150 years of freedom African-Americans still do not see themselves as free. What does that say about our modern society?
Another similarity “Push” shares with our previous texts is stolen childhood. Bearing the burden of slavery Douglass and Jacobs were robbed of their childhoods. Confronted daily with the ravages of slavery they had to grow up early. Bearing the consequences of slavery years after its abolishment Wright’s childhood too was blighted. Precious, the victim of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse since she could remember also experienced little of what most would consider a childhood. Her words “Thas a stupid question, did I ever get to be a chile? I am a chile,” force us to confront what it really means to be a child in such an adult world.
And on a complete side note, the central metaphor of the book appeared in Chapter 1. Lying on the kitchen floor of her meager apartment, beaten and bloody, Precious clings to the words of a kind stranger as she gives birth to her first child at 12 years old: “Push, Precious, you gonna hafta push.” Perhaps this is how we should read this novel. Finding her voice, finding herself and finding her way is going to be like giving birth — ugly, bloody, and beautiful.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Some random thoughts on Jacobs
While Jacobs is in hiding her Aunt Nancy dies. After a lifetime of childless years brought on by emotional, mental, and physical suffering she is finally laid to rest (not at her mistress’s feet as the slave mistress insensitively wanted) but in her family plot with a service paid for by her free son, made free by the poor woman’s toil. How Mr. and Mrs. Flint could actually believe that Phillip’s actions were in homage to them is beyond me. How can people be so clueless, so oblivious to reality?
One of my favorite lines in Jacobs’s narrative occurred in chapter 29. Stretching her literary muscles in this autobiographical memoir Jacobs’s grandmother becomes a metaphor for the whole oppressed race: “The poor old back was fitted to its burden. It bent under it, but did not break.” This image is iconic and captivating and every time Jacobs’s told another horror story about slavery I had the image of her grandmother’s bent back bearing the weight of a people’s hopes and fears.
Though Jacobs’s novel is directed towards Northern white women, she does not fail to provide some advice to free Northern black women. She seems to give a prescription for how to treat women who have recently come to the North after their escape from slavery — with womanly sympathy. Jacobs tells her story to Mr. Durham soon after her arrival in the North more to unburden her heavy heart than in an effort to solicit help. Afterwards, she worried how much the kind reverend shared with his wife, but Mrs. Durham never said a word about what she might or might not know. Jacobs wrote: “I longed to know whether her husband had repeated to her what I had told him. I supposed he had, but she never made any allusion to it. I presume it was the delicate silence of womanly sympathy.”
Finally, unlike Doglass’s memoir in Jacobs’s we see how the North is not the haven slaves would have had it be: “It made me sad to find how the north aped the customs of slavery,” Jacobs wrote. The use of the word “aped” is particularly striking. It suggests that the North, and the system it “aped,” not the slaves, were less than human and by extension, less than humane.
One of my favorite lines in Jacobs’s narrative occurred in chapter 29. Stretching her literary muscles in this autobiographical memoir Jacobs’s grandmother becomes a metaphor for the whole oppressed race: “The poor old back was fitted to its burden. It bent under it, but did not break.” This image is iconic and captivating and every time Jacobs’s told another horror story about slavery I had the image of her grandmother’s bent back bearing the weight of a people’s hopes and fears.
Though Jacobs’s novel is directed towards Northern white women, she does not fail to provide some advice to free Northern black women. She seems to give a prescription for how to treat women who have recently come to the North after their escape from slavery — with womanly sympathy. Jacobs tells her story to Mr. Durham soon after her arrival in the North more to unburden her heavy heart than in an effort to solicit help. Afterwards, she worried how much the kind reverend shared with his wife, but Mrs. Durham never said a word about what she might or might not know. Jacobs wrote: “I longed to know whether her husband had repeated to her what I had told him. I supposed he had, but she never made any allusion to it. I presume it was the delicate silence of womanly sympathy.”
Finally, unlike Doglass’s memoir in Jacobs’s we see how the North is not the haven slaves would have had it be: “It made me sad to find how the north aped the customs of slavery,” Jacobs wrote. The use of the word “aped” is particularly striking. It suggests that the North, and the system it “aped,” not the slaves, were less than human and by extension, less than humane.
Thoughts on motherhood, self-sacrifice, and selfishness
Jacobs’s memoir was gut wrenching, but I was particularly affected by chapter 22 when Jacobs described that she was unable to crawl out from her hiding place even when mortal sickness took her. She lay there sick and suffering even when her son, bloodied from a dog attack, screamed for his mother. She could not even rise to tend her sick grandmother when she collapsed from the strain of their tenuous position. And I have never understood how one mother can wish another mother’s child dead as Mrs. Flint does in chapter 22. Having born a child and feared for the loss of that little life, she should know better. By showing us this side of slavery, Jacobs makes the slave masters inhuman and the slaves human.
She continues to show the seedy underbelly of this cruel world when the father of her children, a man she initially portrays as semi-upstanding, does not immediately free his own children after purchasing them. Because it is not socially acceptable to do so this future U.S. senator drives the mother of his children to jeopardize all of their freedom to beg him to do the right thing. Even after this desperate plea, he ends up depositing his own daughter with a relative like burdensome, but undiscardable luggage. How could Mr. Sands not free the children the minute he purchased them? How could he stand to hold such a foul thing as the deed to his son’s and daughter’s life for even a second? I remember reading Jacobs’s memoir in 5th grade and I couldn’t comprehend such cruelty as a child and now as a grown woman and mother I still don’t understand it today. Such selfishness and self-centeredness is just beyond my understanding.
In direct contrast there is Jacobs, sacrificing life and limb to better her children’s lives while their own father is more worried about his reputation. In chapter 25 when Jacobs drops in the “I have been here five years” I gasped (I remember gasping like that as a little 10-year-old )! For five years she has opted to live in a “dungeon” so that she and her children may be free. Talk about personal sacrifice and possessing the will to be free. And I cannot believe it took her nearly 7 years to escape from the South and when an opportunity came she initially passed it up for the sake of her children and in deference to the plight of another poor soul.
What struck me was Jacobs’s complete selflessness in a system that breeds selfishness. When her brother, William, jumps at an opportunity for freedom Jacobs’s gently rebukes herself for thinking of how his actions might impact her children’s chance for freedom. Jacobs’s words were a slap to my own face because I too silently chided William for putting himself before the interests of his nephew and niece. As a mother I asked myself how such a loving uncle could risk their freedom for his own and then the answer was made simple; for this abominable institution to work it has to be everyone for themselves. A chance for freedom is so rare that when it presents itself you have to take it and those left behind must simply rejoice in that lucky twist of fate and pray that their time will come. What a horrible thing that the cost of freedom is family. What a horrible thing that one must put oneself ahead of all others. Sad that such an institution breeds such necessary selfishness.
And in the end William ends up being more honorable than Mr. Sands, who failed to free his own children and thus likely would not have freed William even though he said he “intended to give him his freedom in five years.” William doesn’t even steal from his master in order to attain his freedom. He buys it with the clothes on his back. I was saddened to see Mr. Sands fail to rise above Southern ideologies but as Jacobs pointed out slavery corrupts all involved. She wrote, “surely there must be some justice in man; then I remembered, with a sigh, how slavery perverted all the natural feelings of the human heart.”
She continues to show the seedy underbelly of this cruel world when the father of her children, a man she initially portrays as semi-upstanding, does not immediately free his own children after purchasing them. Because it is not socially acceptable to do so this future U.S. senator drives the mother of his children to jeopardize all of their freedom to beg him to do the right thing. Even after this desperate plea, he ends up depositing his own daughter with a relative like burdensome, but undiscardable luggage. How could Mr. Sands not free the children the minute he purchased them? How could he stand to hold such a foul thing as the deed to his son’s and daughter’s life for even a second? I remember reading Jacobs’s memoir in 5th grade and I couldn’t comprehend such cruelty as a child and now as a grown woman and mother I still don’t understand it today. Such selfishness and self-centeredness is just beyond my understanding.
In direct contrast there is Jacobs, sacrificing life and limb to better her children’s lives while their own father is more worried about his reputation. In chapter 25 when Jacobs drops in the “I have been here five years” I gasped (I remember gasping like that as a little 10-year-old )! For five years she has opted to live in a “dungeon” so that she and her children may be free. Talk about personal sacrifice and possessing the will to be free. And I cannot believe it took her nearly 7 years to escape from the South and when an opportunity came she initially passed it up for the sake of her children and in deference to the plight of another poor soul.
What struck me was Jacobs’s complete selflessness in a system that breeds selfishness. When her brother, William, jumps at an opportunity for freedom Jacobs’s gently rebukes herself for thinking of how his actions might impact her children’s chance for freedom. Jacobs’s words were a slap to my own face because I too silently chided William for putting himself before the interests of his nephew and niece. As a mother I asked myself how such a loving uncle could risk their freedom for his own and then the answer was made simple; for this abominable institution to work it has to be everyone for themselves. A chance for freedom is so rare that when it presents itself you have to take it and those left behind must simply rejoice in that lucky twist of fate and pray that their time will come. What a horrible thing that the cost of freedom is family. What a horrible thing that one must put oneself ahead of all others. Sad that such an institution breeds such necessary selfishness.
And in the end William ends up being more honorable than Mr. Sands, who failed to free his own children and thus likely would not have freed William even though he said he “intended to give him his freedom in five years.” William doesn’t even steal from his master in order to attain his freedom. He buys it with the clothes on his back. I was saddened to see Mr. Sands fail to rise above Southern ideologies but as Jacobs pointed out slavery corrupts all involved. She wrote, “surely there must be some justice in man; then I remembered, with a sigh, how slavery perverted all the natural feelings of the human heart.”
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Thoughts on Religion and Motherhood
One of the most powerful moments, thus far, in Jacobs’s narrative is the end of Chapter 12. She describes she and her fellow slaves standing in their designated corner of the local church, waiting until all the white people — who begrudged them just that small piece of God’s grace — took communion. Only then, under the watchful eyes of their oppressors, could they exercise their faith. Jacobs and her fellow slaves could not even worship God freely. Jacobs points out the irony of the situation, noting that in the very church of the “meek and lowly” man who said “God is your father, and all ye are brethren,” she and her fellow slaves are treated as less than human and virtually denied religion.
And the religion they were force-fed was a twisted version of the New Testament Christianity Southern whites pretended to practice. God for the African American in Southern religion was the Ultimate Master, whom they were to obey unquestioningly and serve gratefully as they did their white masters. Not even in religion were slaves free of oppressive forced servitude. But if allowed to come to God in their own way, Jacobs said, “many of them are sincere, and nearer to the gate of heaven than sanctimonious Mr. Pike, and other long-faced Christians, who see wounded Samaritans, and pass by on the other side” (Ch. 13). In other words, the slaves achieve a faith truer than that of their hypocritical masters.
Jacobs also uses religion as a “call to arms,” so to speak, for Northern women. She praises their international missionary efforts, but challenges them to accomplish as much at home:
“I am glad that missionaries go out to the dark corners of the earth; but I ask them not to overlook the dark corners at home. Talk to American slaveholders as you talk to savages in Africa. Tell them it was wrong to traffic in men. Tell them it is sinful to sell their own children, and atrocious to violate their own daughters. Tell them that all men are brethren, and that man has no right to shut out the light of knowledge from his brother. Tell them they are answerable to God for sealing up the Fountain of Life from souls that are thirsting for it” (Ch. 13).
Jacobs’s call to arms is more than just a challenge to Northern Christian women to champion her cause. She also seems to placing responsibility for the abolishment of slavery squarely in the hands of Northern women. If they will it and work their will on the men in their influence then Northern women can alter the destiny of an entire race and change the future of a nation. That is a powerful message to deliver to women at a time when they had no obvious political will. This idea that a strong “will” can overcome apparently insurmountable odds is crucial to Jacobs’s growth from slave to free woman.
One of the other exceptionally powerful aspects of Jacobs’s work is the intimate view of a mother’s agony that she paints. Each stroke of her pen must have caused her such anguish to relive — describing the jailing of her children, their sale, her suffering as she caught glimpses of them through the crack in her dark hole of a hiding space. And out of this darkness arose prose that’s almost poetry:
“I had a woman's pride, and a mother's love for my children; and I resolved that out of the darkness of this hour a brighter dawn should rise for them. My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each” (Ch. 16).
And this will in Jacobs is born of her motherhood. At this point there are some interesting comparisons we can make about Douglass’s and Jacobs’s fight for freedom. Douglass’s growing masculinity and sense of his own manhood prompted him to seek his freedom in the North. Jacobs’s responsibilities as a mother drive her take desperate action. And while Douglass metaphorically (and literally) wrested his freedom from his oppressors, Jacobs had to “will” herself free.
And the religion they were force-fed was a twisted version of the New Testament Christianity Southern whites pretended to practice. God for the African American in Southern religion was the Ultimate Master, whom they were to obey unquestioningly and serve gratefully as they did their white masters. Not even in religion were slaves free of oppressive forced servitude. But if allowed to come to God in their own way, Jacobs said, “many of them are sincere, and nearer to the gate of heaven than sanctimonious Mr. Pike, and other long-faced Christians, who see wounded Samaritans, and pass by on the other side” (Ch. 13). In other words, the slaves achieve a faith truer than that of their hypocritical masters.
Jacobs also uses religion as a “call to arms,” so to speak, for Northern women. She praises their international missionary efforts, but challenges them to accomplish as much at home:
“I am glad that missionaries go out to the dark corners of the earth; but I ask them not to overlook the dark corners at home. Talk to American slaveholders as you talk to savages in Africa. Tell them it was wrong to traffic in men. Tell them it is sinful to sell their own children, and atrocious to violate their own daughters. Tell them that all men are brethren, and that man has no right to shut out the light of knowledge from his brother. Tell them they are answerable to God for sealing up the Fountain of Life from souls that are thirsting for it” (Ch. 13).
Jacobs’s call to arms is more than just a challenge to Northern Christian women to champion her cause. She also seems to placing responsibility for the abolishment of slavery squarely in the hands of Northern women. If they will it and work their will on the men in their influence then Northern women can alter the destiny of an entire race and change the future of a nation. That is a powerful message to deliver to women at a time when they had no obvious political will. This idea that a strong “will” can overcome apparently insurmountable odds is crucial to Jacobs’s growth from slave to free woman.
One of the other exceptionally powerful aspects of Jacobs’s work is the intimate view of a mother’s agony that she paints. Each stroke of her pen must have caused her such anguish to relive — describing the jailing of her children, their sale, her suffering as she caught glimpses of them through the crack in her dark hole of a hiding space. And out of this darkness arose prose that’s almost poetry:
“I had a woman's pride, and a mother's love for my children; and I resolved that out of the darkness of this hour a brighter dawn should rise for them. My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each” (Ch. 16).
And this will in Jacobs is born of her motherhood. At this point there are some interesting comparisons we can make about Douglass’s and Jacobs’s fight for freedom. Douglass’s growing masculinity and sense of his own manhood prompted him to seek his freedom in the North. Jacobs’s responsibilities as a mother drive her take desperate action. And while Douglass metaphorically (and literally) wrested his freedom from his oppressors, Jacobs had to “will” herself free.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Emotion in Jacobs narrative
There are some interesting similarities, and one striking contrast, between Harriet Jacobs’s narrative “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” In particular, Douglass and Jacobs use emotion, but in different ways and both paint similar pictures of slavery.
Douglass’s narrative was an intellectual exercise that demonstrated his right to be accorded the rights and responsibilities of a man. Jacobs’s narrative is the emotional appeal of a woman to other women to end slavery.
The focus of the narrative is women’s issues: domesticity, children and family, marriage, infidelity, and rape. If Jacobs is appealing to women it makes perfect sense to appeal to them as wives and mothers. Thus, like Douglass, her intellect and reasoning powers are evident in this emotional appeal.
Also, like Douglass, she presents the incidents of her story extremely factual-like, almost journalistic before breaking into a passionate apostrophe, trying to emotionally connect to others who have known the pain of childbirth, who have experienced the grief of losing a child, and suffered the pangs of marital betrayal.
And like Douglass Jacobs also sees slavery as degrading to humans, but emphasizes a slave’s humanity: “She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother’s instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother’s agonies” (Ch. 3).
Jacobs also points out the hypocrisy of the system she and Douglass lived under — the ambiguous morality and the blending of right and wrong into something else, some other breed of judgment. “There may be sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible,” Jacobs wrote in chapter 10 of her narrative. Like Douglass she too sees how the term “good master” is an oxymoron and how under slavery none are virtuous.
Early in the narrative, during her sheltered and peaceful years, Jacobs presents the bright side of slavery (if there is one) — noble people who do what is right even when they hold all the power and don’t have to. A good example is the sister of her grandmother’s mistress who bought the betrayed woman and set her free. It is interesting that Jacobs opted to first present her readers with the better side of slavery, pointing out the few semi-upstanding citizens and the system’s “moral code” and methods of impinging its will upon “code breakers” before revealing slavery’s seedy underbelly. She shows us the meager bright side before shining a spotlight on the rapes and murders, destruction of families, spoiling of the innocent, and the betrayals committed by even the most upstanding of slave owners.
Douglass’s narrative was an intellectual exercise that demonstrated his right to be accorded the rights and responsibilities of a man. Jacobs’s narrative is the emotional appeal of a woman to other women to end slavery.
The focus of the narrative is women’s issues: domesticity, children and family, marriage, infidelity, and rape. If Jacobs is appealing to women it makes perfect sense to appeal to them as wives and mothers. Thus, like Douglass, her intellect and reasoning powers are evident in this emotional appeal.
Also, like Douglass, she presents the incidents of her story extremely factual-like, almost journalistic before breaking into a passionate apostrophe, trying to emotionally connect to others who have known the pain of childbirth, who have experienced the grief of losing a child, and suffered the pangs of marital betrayal.
And like Douglass Jacobs also sees slavery as degrading to humans, but emphasizes a slave’s humanity: “She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother’s instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother’s agonies” (Ch. 3).
Jacobs also points out the hypocrisy of the system she and Douglass lived under — the ambiguous morality and the blending of right and wrong into something else, some other breed of judgment. “There may be sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible,” Jacobs wrote in chapter 10 of her narrative. Like Douglass she too sees how the term “good master” is an oxymoron and how under slavery none are virtuous.
Early in the narrative, during her sheltered and peaceful years, Jacobs presents the bright side of slavery (if there is one) — noble people who do what is right even when they hold all the power and don’t have to. A good example is the sister of her grandmother’s mistress who bought the betrayed woman and set her free. It is interesting that Jacobs opted to first present her readers with the better side of slavery, pointing out the few semi-upstanding citizens and the system’s “moral code” and methods of impinging its will upon “code breakers” before revealing slavery’s seedy underbelly. She shows us the meager bright side before shining a spotlight on the rapes and murders, destruction of families, spoiling of the innocent, and the betrayals committed by even the most upstanding of slave owners.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Douglass Chapter 11 to end
One of the most striking things about Douglass' memoir is the ambiguous morality practiced by Southern slaveholders. Douglass spends a lot of time in the final chapters pointing out the hypocrisy of Southern Christianity. He tackles this hot-button issue head on and with no fear, knocking the religious "crutch" out of slaveholders' hands. His critiques are scathing while at the same time fair. Every sinner in Douglass' narrative has a little of the saint in them and every saint has a little bit of the sinner. He doesn't paint a stark black and white picture of slavery, but rather one with varying shades of gray.
There was a process by which Douglass was reduced from man to slave and to gain his freedom the process is reversed. One of the most important steps in this process is to first recognize freedom as a desired thing. The most cruel trickery committed by slaveholders in Douglass' eyes is the transformation of the freedom into a vile thing.
To escape slavery one must value his/her freedom and deem it a necessary component of a happy life. Then a slave must learn to overcome his/her bondage and form loving attachments to fellow slaves. The next step is to fight for one's freedom; to assert one's rights and challenge the authority of slavery. Douglass suggests that to rise up is to claim one's "manhood." And the final step in transforming from slave to free man is to share one's story with the world. By regaining one's voice the slave conquers his/her fears and is able to rejoin society, forming loving bonds as free men do.
There was a process by which Douglass was reduced from man to slave and to gain his freedom the process is reversed. One of the most important steps in this process is to first recognize freedom as a desired thing. The most cruel trickery committed by slaveholders in Douglass' eyes is the transformation of the freedom into a vile thing.
To escape slavery one must value his/her freedom and deem it a necessary component of a happy life. Then a slave must learn to overcome his/her bondage and form loving attachments to fellow slaves. The next step is to fight for one's freedom; to assert one's rights and challenge the authority of slavery. Douglass suggests that to rise up is to claim one's "manhood." And the final step in transforming from slave to free man is to share one's story with the world. By regaining one's voice the slave conquers his/her fears and is able to rejoin society, forming loving bonds as free men do.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Douglas Chapters 3-8
These chapters go through the early life of Douglas from when he was a kid to the time he moved off the farm to the city. Douglas life on the farm was not an easy one, well maybe for him it was seeing as how he was just a boy, but the master and the overseer are described in these chapters. I was astonished by the brutality that the overseer was using and even more astonished that the master allowed such brutality. the master and overseer ruled over the slaves with fear, and when fear didn't work it meant big trouble. I specifically remember the story about how a slaves head was blown off, just because he refused to be whipped and when the overseer had to explain his actions there was no qualm what so ever. It saddened me to think that the life of a slave was worth so little to people that slaves could be killed without any repercussions, except for maybe paying for the lost property. When douglas became a little older he was sold to a family in the city, this marks the end to his farm work for a while. I thought it was interesting to note how within the slave population there were rankings, for instance a city slave had it much easier, in some cases, than the slaves on the farm. The city slaves were better clothed, better fed and better treated. It’s almost as though in the city a slave became a status symbol, like my slave is dressed better than yours and my slave is fatter and better fed than yours. It’s the first time I ever thought that having a slave could be a status symbol. It is in this time of his life that Douglas also learns to read and write, which I believe is the turning point in his life. He now knows how to read and write, and his on his way to becoming an educated man. I believe that an education is key for a slave to realize that he is under serious oppression, and that is why it was illegal to teach a slave and educate them.
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