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Kristin Mizell
The Importance of Historical Context
Literature is an integral part of history. Literature from a specific
time period is a snapshot of what people of that time were thinking, feeling,
and experiencing. With slave narratives from Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs,
and Sojourner Truth we are given an insight into the truth of slavery from those
who lived it. Not only can literature give insight into history, but also
history can give us insight into literature. Works like Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s
The Declaration of Sentiments is not half as powerful if one has no historical
knowledge of The Declaration of Independence. Knowing the timeline of events
around Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle
Tom’s Cabin gives new importance to the work. History and Literature are
capable of enhancing the understanding and importance of one another.
Unfortunately, many people think of slavery as a problem from so long ago
it is irrelevant. Many people do not realize that slavery only ended around one
hundred and fifty years ago. Not only do people think of slavery as a bygone
problem, many people have trouble even conceptualizing slavery. This is not to
say that is always the learner’s fault. It is an unfortunate truth that slavery
can be glossed over in the public school system. However, because of the works
of people like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Jacobs, we have
first hand accounts of the reality of slavery. These works are invaluable in
that they give a name and a face to a concept that many people have a hard time
wrapping their head around. We have to learn from our past, and glossing over it
does not help us do that. Harriet Jacobs’
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl not only allows people like us to look
back and learn, but it also served to enlighten people of the time of what it
truly meant to be a slave. Not every Northerner was an Abolitionist. It is not
hard to believe that many people in the North could explain away slavery because
they did not see it. Jacobs’ work was published in 1861 when slavery was still
legal, and though she was free she wanted to get the word out about what was
really happening. She states in her introduction,
I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of
the
condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage,
suffering what I
suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that
of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is.
Only by
experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit
of
abominations (P3).
This call to action is an example of how literature can impact history, by
recruiting people to become abolitionists, and how historical knowledge can be
expanded by history with the recollections of slavery by a woman who was once a
slave.
Frederick Douglass was also a slave who published work during the time of
slavery. He was born into slavery but was able to escape to the North and wrote
about his life. His work is a brutal one that leaves no question about the
vicious nature of slavery. He details a woman being whipped:
upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no
tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart
from its
bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where
the blood ran fastest, there
he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her
scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue,
would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin (1.10).
Reading accounts like this leave no room for doubt. As someone reading this as a
historical work it describes the abusive nature of slavery as best as words can
describe something so evil, and as a slave narrative of the time it allowed
people to see the unjust nature of something that was happening all around them.
Because of this, the slave narrative is an important part of both history and
literature.
History and Literature also intersect in that knowing the historical
context for a specific work can give the reader a new understanding of the work.
For example, I had read excerpts from
Uncle Tom’s Cabin before but I did not realize it was written just two years
after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. Of course the work was important
before I learned this fact, but now Eliza’s plight is more contextualized.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was inspired by the passing of the act to write the story
of a mother fleeing slavery to bring home the awful nature of slavery and the
Fugitive Slave Act for readers.
Another work that was motivated by historical events is Henry David Thoreau’s
“Resistance to Civil Government.” Thoreau wrote this one year after the
Mexican-American War. These events may not seem connected, but Thoreau being an
abolitionist meant that the American victory in that war was not one to be
celebrated. With the end of the Mexican-American War, the United States gained
quite a bit of land. Part of that land was Texas, which would join as a slave
state. Slavery had been on the decline, and with the addition of a new slave
state it would be on the rise again. Knowing this event happened before
Thoreau’s work gives it new meaning. Of course it was a call for civil
disobedience and that can be seen without the extra context, but knowing it was
a call for civil disobedience during this time gives it more importance. These
literary works help illustrate how abolitionists were able to use literature as
a means to fight slavery. Literature is a key way to spread ideas, and
historically the spreading of ideas has led to change.
Other examples of spreading ideas and hoping for change are the works of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth. These women laid the foundation for
the suffragette movement and also spoke as abolitionists. They sought freedom
for women and slaves and used their work to illustrate that. Stanton’s
The Declaration of Sentiments was
given at the Seneca Falls Women’s Convention. We learn about this convention in
history class and having this work illustrate the goal of this convention is
invaluable. Not only does it have historical and literary merit on it’s own, it
draws from another historical document to make its point. The work is important
on it’s own, but when compared to The
Declaration of Independence the work has even more to offer. It cleverly
uses terms and phrases recognizable from the original document such as “We hold
these truths to be self evident” in order to drive the point home (2). Sojourner
Truth also spoke at a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. While there, Truth
makes a powerful statement about black women in the women’s rights movement.
Unfortunately this movement tends to be white washed so having Sojourner Truth’s
work shows how powerful black women also contributed.
History and Literature are not completely independent from each other.
They intersect in many ways and help give meaning to each other. Both subjects
can be learned separately, but taught together they can strengthen
understanding. Slave narratives give a name and face to an abstract subject in
history. Historical contexts give new meaning and a better understanding of the
motives behind literary works.
