LITR 4232: American Renaissance

University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002

Student Presentation Summary

Reader:  Jennifer Laubach

Recorder:  Candy Berry

05 February 2002

Sojourner Truth and Harriet Beecher Stowe

Background:

Sojourner Truth

            Sojourner Truth is an ex-slave, born in 1797 in Hurley, Ulster County, New York.  In 1827 she fled her master.  In 1829 Truth moved to New York City and worked as a domestic servant.  She says that in 1843 God summoned her to preach.  In 1875 she retired to Battle Creek.  One of the most interesting facts about Sojourner Truth is that she did not write her own autobiography, but dictated it to Olive Gilbert.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

            Stowe was born in 1811 and died in1896.  Seven of her siblings as well as her father were all ministers.  In 1845 she wrote her first sketch on slavery, “Immediate Emancipation.”  She is best know for writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which started out as sketches scheduled to run for fourteen weeks in an anti-slavery newspaper, National Era.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a moral attack on slavery.

Objectives:

Objective 2:  Gothic and Sublime

Sublime - awesome effect or impact that reading or seeing something has on an individual; aesthetics- taste, beauty, pleasure vs. ugliness and pain

Gothic – interplay with light and dark; can be terrifying

Objective 3:  representative literature

Quotes:

Objective 2

“Sojourner Truth, a self-named ex-slave, a wandering evangelist, a woman nearly six feet tall with a great, resounding voice and presence so extraordinary that one of her listeners wrote that in describing her one might ‘as well attempt to report the seven apocalyptic thunders.’ “

“If she was not, after all, immortal, she was certainly larger than life.”

In her physical appearance, Sojourner Truth embodies aspects of the sublime.  He height and voice make her a larger than life figure.  The comparison of her to the apocalyptic thunders is an example of the gothic.  It is a terrifying image, and yet intriguing.

“…I met God!…I could feel it burnin’, burnin’, burnin’ all around me, an’ goin’ through me an I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it would burn me up.  An’ I said, ‘Oh somebody, somebody, stand between God an’ me for it burns me!’ “

This is another example of the sublime.  Here we see the pleasure of meeting God for the first time coupled with the pain and agony of burning.

Objective 3

            “… she argued that women should have their rights, for example, because, god and woman produced Jesus Christ and there was not a single man involved…she did not accept either the notion of physical inferiority of women or the idea that women would or should be placed on pedestals.  If institutions in the public sphere, such as the courts, were not fit places for women, she though they were unfit for men as well.”

            “…Sojourner Truth did not envision women and men as husband and wives, but more as parallel entities.”

Truth was very active in promoting women’s rights and equality.  She did not distinguish between races; she was not only campaigning for black women’s rights, but for the rights of all women.

            “And while she said that she was glad that black men were getting their rights, she regarded the restriction of voting rights to men as pure meanness…”

            “…man is so selfish that he has got women’s rights and his own too, and yet he won’t give women their rights.  He keeps them all to himself…”

            “Well, honey, I’s ben to der meetings, an’ harked a good deal.  Dey wanted me fur to speak.  So I got up.  Says I, ‘sister, I ain’t clear what you’d be after.  Ef women want any rights more’n dey’s got, why don’t dey jes’ take’em , an’ not be talkin’ about it”

Truth speaks out against the injustice caused by men.  Again, she speaks on behalf of all women.  In her view, woman and men both have rights.  It is up to women to take their rights back from repressive men.

Discussion Notes:

Question One:  Do you feel that Sojourner Truth’s message had a greater impact because she was an African-American, or because she was a woman?

Candy:  I think that both being African-American and being a woman had an equal impact on her message.  I feel that she was listened to because of both of these things.

Student:  I think that both of these aspects gave her strength.

Student:  Her appearance, being tall, black, the way she dressed, and her strong, deep voice had a great impact on how people looked at her.

Val:  She gave the white women  courage as well as the African-American women.

Angie:  I agree, she appealed to all women, not just those of her own race.

Dr. White:  Yes, she even talked about German women, so she was appealing to people beyond the black race.

Jennifer:  There was a lot of power in her voice, so people listened when she spoke.

Val:  I see a lot of similarities between her speeches and those of the Indians that we read.

Student:  She crossed the lines of being proper.  She openly spoke the words “I am not afraid!”

Student:  The way she dressed put on an air of courage also.

Angie:  She made other women think about their secret desires to be so courageous.

Jennifer:  She had nothing to lose.  She was probably thinking; “What can anyone do to me that hasn’t already been done?”

Question 2:  Does knowing that Truth did not write her autobiography, but dictated it to Olive Gilbert, obscure the meaning of her work?  Does it make you question the authority of the text?

Val:  It seems to be her words, dialect and all!

Ronda:  I believe the dictator of her autobiography took great pains to write it exactly as she said it.

Angie:  Stowe’s take on slavery as a writer might have made her interpretation a little biased.

Jennifer:  It was probably the true meaning of her words with a little twist.

Ronda:  I did not like the true dialect being printed, it seems a little patronizing.

Val:  Stowe seemed to be more focused on racial issues rather than issues for all women.  What did Stowe possibly leave out?