Slave Narratives as Slave Narratives as Protest WritingProtest Writing

AS/HUMA 1300Faculty of Arts

Course Outline: Slave narratives Course Outline: Slave narratives as protest writingas protest writing

1.The Abolitionist Movement

2. Slave Narratives as Autobiography

3. Function of Narratives

4. Characteristics of Narratives

5. Gender and Slave Narratives

Abolitionist MovementsAbolitionist Movements

British Caribbean1770s-1830s;

British anti-slaveryactivists lobbying British Parliament;

Paternalistic Christianity.

United States1830s-1870;

Evangelical religiousmovements of the 1830s;

Active participation ofnorthern blacks and ex-slaves.

AutobiographyAutobiography

. . . autobiography must be understood as a recollective/narrative act in which the writer, from a certain point in his life—the present—looks back over the events of that life and recounts them in such a way as to show how history has led to this present state of being. (James Olney, Autobiography)

5 Functions of Slave Narratives5 Functions of Slave Narratives

1. To document the conditions of or ”truth” about slavery

2. To encourage the abolition of slavery

3. To provide religious inspiration

4. To assert the narrator’s personhood

5. To challenge stereotypes about blacks

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

. . . The black slave’s narrative came to be a communal utterance, a collective tale, rather than merely an individual’s autobiography. Each slave author, in writing about his or her personal life’s experiences, simultaneously wrote on behalf of millions of silent slaves still held captive . . . All blacks would be judged—on their character, integrity, intelligence, manners and morals and their claim to warrant emancipation—on this published evidence produced by one of their number. (Classic Slave Narratives 2)

8 Characteristics of Slave 8 Characteristics of Slave NarrativesNarratives

1. A preface as authenticating material or testimony2. First sentence begins: “I was born . . .”3. Details of the first observed whipping4. An account of a hardworking slave who refuses to be whipped5. Details of the quest for literacy6. Account of a slave auction7. Description of attempts to escape8. Appendix of documentary material

Mythological Pattern of Slave Mythological Pattern of Slave Narratives Narratives

1. Loss of innocence

2. Realization of alternatives to bondage and resolve to be free

3. Escape

4. Freedom obtained

Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass

It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled in vain. I now understoodwhat had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. (Classic Slave Narratives 364)