LITR 5731:
Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of
Houston-Clear Lake, Fall 2001
Sample Student Midterm
Erin Gouner
Seminar in Minority Literature
Dr. Craig White
October 2, 2001
Ain’t
I a Woman?
Typically minority groups are thought of in the context of race; however,
a minority group can also consist of gender and class. The struggles facing a
minority group complicate further when these different facets of minority
categories are combined into what is sometimes called a double minority.
Throughout American history, African American women have exemplified how being a
double minority changes the conditions of being a minority. In Reminiscences
by Frances D. Gage of Sojourner Truth, for May 28-29, 1851, a speech by
Sojourner Truth is recalled where she poses the question—"Ain’t I a
woman" (Lauter 2049). Truth speaks for women’s rights in this speech, but
her question becomes more interesting when applied to African American women
because they move from being a double minority to a single minority with this
statement. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Song of Solomon,
and Push demonstrate in their African American female characters the
impact of having a double minority status.
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs depicts
her struggle as an African American woman during slavery. As a female slave in
her master’s house, she was subject to her master’s sexual advances. Jacobs
explains her feelings about her master’s desires and the struggle of female
slaves in the following comments:
The
felon’s home in a penitentiary is preferable. He may repent, and turn from the
error of his ways, and so find peace; but it is not so with a favorite slave.
She is not allowed to have any pride of character. It is deemed a crime in her
to wish to be virtuous. p. 363
This statement from Jacobs
demonstrates the slave’s feelings of imprisonment by comparing her situation
to that of a criminal. The institution of slavery is already a prison, but at
least the felon in a penitentiary deserves his loss of freedom. The imprisonment
of female slaves furthers when her master sexually desires her. An African
American male slave would not have to worry about his mistress making sexual
advances at him. Upon occasion a small boy would work in the house, but most
males worked outside. Therefore, the helplessness of her situation is unique to
the female slave. Her master controls every aspect of her life—her workload,
her portion of food, her living conditions, and her punishments. His control
over her life makes the act of telling him no a very difficult and delicate
task.
In addition to Jacobs
worrying about her master’s advances, she has to worry about her jealous
mistress, Mrs. Flint. Harriet Jacobs describes the fear she felt as Mrs.
Flint’s suspicions rise:
At
last, I began to be fearful for my life. It had been often threatened; and you
can imagine, better than I can describe, what an unpleasant sensation it must
produce to wake up in the dead of night and find a jealous woman bending over
you. p. 366
Jacobs’ situation
exemplifies the tensions in the relationship between the slave owner’s wife
and her female slaves. Mrs. Flint knows about her husband’s sexual escapades
with the female slaves, but she cannot confront him. Instead Mrs. Flint has to
focus her aggression on Jacob’s, even though Jacobs is just as helpless in the
situation. However, the fact that Jacobs cannot express her aggressions in the
situation to anyone demonstrates her powerlessness as a double minority.
Furthermore, Jacobs discusses
the consequences of the slave owner’s sexual acts with his female slaves and
the misplaced aggression of his jealous wife in the following:
Southern
women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves.
They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property,
as marketable as the pigs on the plantation. p. 368
The consequence of the
promiscuous master is children from his female slaves. These children deviate
further from the dominant cultures acceptance because they are interracial.
Moreover, the African American woman’s struggle becomes more devastating
because her children are sold to keep from being a reminder to the slave
owner’s wife of her husband’s infidelity. The female slave has to suffer and
lose her family in order to ease the mind of her master and his wife.
Finally, Jacobs decides to stop her master’s advances and ease the mind
of her jealous mistress. She begins a relationship with a white man named Mr.
Sands, and she has children by him. Jacobs expresses her hope that he will buy
her freedom and her children’s freedom from Mr. Flint in this statement:
I
knew nothing would enrage Dr. Flint so much as to know that I favored
another…I thought he would revenge himself by selling me, and I was sure my
friend, Mr. Sands, would buy me… I knew that as soon as a new fancy took him,
his victims were sold far off to get rid of them…I had seen several women
sold, with his babies at their breast. p. 385-386
In this statement Jacobs
shows her fear at being defiant to Dr. Flint because he can sell her.
Furthermore, Jacobs is aware that if Dr. Flint is no longer interested in her
then she will be sold. She gives the reader a heart-breaking image of his past
victims sold while they were still nursing his interracial children. She also
expresses her hope that the father of her children, Mr. Sands, will free them.
Jacobs has to rely on Mr. Sands to free her because she knows that she cannot
purchase her own freedom. However, Mr. Sands never offers to buy her freedom or
his children’s freedom from the Flints. Jacobs shows that she is forced to
rely on white men for protection and she hopes, freedom. Ironically, a white
woman eventually purchases her and her children’s freedom, and Jacobs chooses
to remain with her to show gratitude. Harriet Jacobs demonstrates the problems
facing female slaves because she is an object of sex and jealousy, she is choice
less about the future of her family, and she has to rely on someone else to
purchase her freedom.
The female characters in Song of Solomon exhibit the difficulties
for double minorities. Macon Dead and his family are a prominent, middle-class
African American family. Although slavery has been over for a long time, the
Dead’s house has a feel of a prison. Macon seems to be the master of his
house, and the women in his family seem to be trapped under his rule. Macon’s
control over his family is revealed in these lines:
Macon
kept each member of his family awkward with fear. His hatred of his wife
glittered and sparked in every word he spoke to her. The disappointment he felt
in his daughters sifted down on them like ash…The way he mangled their grace,
wit, and self-esteem was the single excitement of their days. p. 10-11
These sentences give the
impression that Macon has killed the spirit of his wife and daughters. His
cruelty is an anticipated excitement because that is the only stimulation they
have throughout the day. Furthermore, these lines give a sense that the women in
the Dead household are voice less and choice less under the money and rule of
Macon.
Macon’s daughter First Corinthians also exemplifies the struggles of
African American women. First Corinthians acquires a college education and is
well traveled. These seem to be the right tools to get a good job and a good
husband. However, because she lacks drive, First Corinthians waits for the job
and husband to be handed to her. At the age of forty-two, she realizes that her
hopes of getting married are slim, so she decides to seek employment. Despite
her education, she does not have the proper qualifications for a teaching job.
Consequently, First Corinthians becomes a maid, which she hides from her family.
Also, she hides her education from her employer as described in these lines:
Corinthians
was naïve, but she was not a complete fool. She never let her mistress know she
had ever been to college or Europe or could recognize one word of French that
Miss Graham had not taught her (entrez, for example). p.190
Although Corinthians obtained
an education, she still ends up working as a maid. Even more interestingly,
Corinthians hides her education to keep her job. This job as a maid fringes on
Corinthians taking a step back into a form of slavery by being a servant.
However, Corinthians finds freedom in her servitude as demonstrated in the
following:
Actually,
the work Corinthians did was good for her. In that house she had what she never
had in her own: responsibility. She flourished in a way, and exchanged arrogance
occasionally for confidence. p.190
Before Corinthians obtains
her job as a maid, she seems to be segregated from her community. Her education
and her families money appear to make her unattainable to the community, but her
lack of drive alienates her from prestigious men moving into the community. The
humility, confidence, and responsibility she gains from working draw her to the
community. She develops a relationship with a man, but since he is of a lower
status she has to hide her relationship from her family. Corinthians exemplifies
the double minority plight because she tries to improve her situation through
the ideals of the dominant culture. But improving according to the dominant
cultures ideals has a catch. By assimilating into the dominant culture, she
losses a connection to her community. Whereas her grandfather, who received his
education and became a doctor, was respected by the community.
In conclusion, the character Precious in Push shows the struggle
of African American women as a double minority, and she furthers the category
into triple minority because she is lower class. Like Jacobs, Precious finds
herself the sexual desire of a master. Only this master is her father.
Precious’ father controls her and her mother through emotional, physical, and
sexual abuse—much like a slave owner. Precious, consequently from her father
raping her, becomes pregnant at the age of twelve and again at sixteen. Precious
describes the questions at the hospital after giving birth to her first child in
the following dialogue:
‘What’s
your daddy’s name?’
‘Carl
Kenwood Jones, born in the Bronx.’
She
say, ‘What’s the baby’s father’s name?’
I
say, ‘Carl Kenwood Jones, born in the same Bronx.’
She
quiet quiet. Say, ‘Shame, thas a shame. Twelve years old…
She
say, ‘Was you ever, I mean did you ever get to be a chile?’ Thas a stupid
question, did I ever get to be a chile? I am a chile. p. 12-13
In these lines Precious
provides written proof on the birth certificate that her father rapes her
because he is the father of her child. However, since she does not give a
statement to the police, they cannot arrest him. By not telling the police,
Precious shows her distrust for law enforcement. This dialogue also demonstrates
the trait that lower class people have a short childhood. Precious is still only
a child but she has to face very adult realities.
During her second pregnancy, Precious is encouraged to attend an
alternative school to learn how to read and write. She becomes literate and
tries to improve her life by moving to a half house. However, Precious learns
that her father died of AIDS and that she has HIV. The glimmer of hope for
Precious is that her son does not have HIV, and that she is reading to him so he
has a chance of becoming competent in literacy. Precious expresses the hope her
son represents in these lines at the end of the book:
The
sun is coming through the window splashing down on him, on the pages of his
book. It’s called The Black BC’s. I love to hold him on my lap, open up the
world to him. When the sun shine on him like this, he is an angel child…In his
beauty I see my own. p. 139-140
This ending gives the
impression that her accomplishments will pay off in him. He is the future for
her and the potential she could not see in herself. However, the fact that the
future looks hopeful through an African American male, not an African American
female, cannot be ignored. Precious exemplifies the struggles of a triple
minority in that she is a lower class African American female. Her childhood
ends abruptly through the sexual abuse from her mother and father. Furthermore,
she tries to improve her life by gaining literacy, but there is a catch at every
turn for her. Finally, the book ends with the impression that her success is in
the possible accomplishments of her African American son and not in her own
achievements.
The African American women in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Song
of Solomon, and Push exemplify the plight of double minorities. Double
minorities face the same dilemmas as minorities, but they face more extreme
consequences and struggles. Perhaps this is because they have to deal with the
dynamics of all the minority groups they belong to. In the case of African
American women, they have to struggle with African American problems as well as
the dilemmas women face. However, African American women seem to have overcome
their double minority status to a degree. African American female writers are
much more popular today than their male counterparts. Perhaps Sojourner Truth
should not have posed the question, "Ain’t I a Woman," because that
still implies that the only move up for African American women is from a double
minority to a single minority (Lauter 2049). Perhaps the real question is—Ain’t
I a Human?
Works
Cited
Gage, Frances D.
"Reminiscences by Frances D. Gage of Sojourner Truth, for May 28-29,
1851." Paul Laufer, ed. The
Heath Anthology of American Literature, vol 1, 3rd ed.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1998.
Jacobs, Harriet Ann.
"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. The
Classic Slave Narratives.
New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
Morrison, Toni. Song of
Solomon. New York: Penguin Group, 1977.
Sapphire. Push. New
York: Vintage Contemporaries/ Vintage Books, 1996.