LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, Fall 2004
Sample Student Midterm

Brendan Foley

October 7, 2004

Representing “The Dream”: An Exploration of Myth, Literacy, and Progress in African-American Literature. 

            If one considers the history of America as a narrative form, the document that could be seen as the catalyst for the themes and movements that have been the underpinning of the nation’s story through the years is The Declaration of Independence.  The founding fathers’ entreaties to “the laws of nature and nature’s God” within The Declaration in order to validate their call for “the inalienable rights” of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” have spun a myriad of values, beliefs, stories, and myths that can be succinctly grouped under the title of “The American Dream.”  “The American Dream” and the values that it signifies are, perhaps, best summarized as equality, opportunity, and progress.   For the founding fathers and there progeny, primarily the white colonial population and later waves of northern European immigrants, this “dream” became the dominant narrative and ideology for the developing nation from its post-revolutionary period up to the our contemporary moment.   Despite the promises that underlie “The American Dream’s” ideology, it has certainly failed to offer the same promise and rewards to certain groups that have played significant parts in the nations history.  Obviously, one such group is the African-American population of the nation, and hopefully, it is not necessary to go into much detail describing the failure and, in many cases, the hypocrisy of  “the American Dream” that this segment of the population has experienced.   Yet, the interesting development that has occurred as result of the African-American experience within America is the development of a similar narrative that parallels, intersects, and also runs counter to the mainstream “American Dream.”  An example of this parallelism and its intersection with the larger narrative is it’s most common title, simply “The Dream.”

“The Dream” narrative in African-American culture can be characterized by the desire to rise above ones conditions, but also includes the elements of achieving and strengthening group dignity, and unlike the typical “American Dream” narrative, it also allows space for hardships and setbacks to occur, but indeed these conditions fuel a desire “to rise again”  (White, 4).  Within modern rhetoric perhaps one of the most powerful references to this “Dream” narrative is the “I Have a Dream” speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr:

I still have a dream.  It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed – we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…

King certainly recognized the connection between the two dream narratives, and certainly tapped into ideological power of each to give a speech that resonates with listeners and readers beyond those who were present on that day in August 1963.   The question that perhaps should be asked is, “if African Americans have been denied, to varying degrees and in a number of forms, access to the “American Dream” through the majority of American history why does the African-American notion of “The Dream” run so close to the mainstream?”  What themes and tropes inform it, and do these forms and values distinguish “The Dream” from the national mythology or is it subverted by said mythology?  The following discussion will examine how myth, literacy, and conceptions of progress appear in varying degrees in The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Oloudah Equiano, Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglas, Jupiter Hammon’s “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries”,  Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Sapphire’s Push, and how they inform the representation of “The Dream” and if they are subverted by the larger cultural myths that  “The Dream” parallels.

            When considering narratives such as “The Dream” it is important to consider where its origins lie and what connections these have to the larger culture.  “The Dream” narrative certainly carries utopic values in its search for personal and communal dignity, and Oloudah Equiano’s narrative gives hints to those origins that can be traced to Western civilization’s utopia myth, the Garden of Eden and the Fall as described within the book of Genesis.   These references lie in Equiano’s description of his homeland prior to his enslavement.  For example, Equiano refers to his place of birth as “a charming fruitful vale” (31) and his homeland as “a country where nature is prodigal of her favours, our wants are few, and easily supplied” (36).  By his description of such abundance, isolation from larger political affairs, “our subjection to the king of Benin was little more than nominal” (31), and a culture of “dancers, musicians and poets” Equiano creates a very idyllic picture of his homeland that parallels not only the Garden of Eden, but also in later American mythology with the Jeffersonian vision of America.   Equiano further strengthens this tie to the Creation myth by showing his people’s connection to Jewish culture through the rituals of circumcision and other rites of purification “used on the same occasions, if my recollection does not fail me, as the Jews” (41).  Certainly, part of Equiano’s writing strategy is to link the African to God’s chosen people and the Christian creation myth in order to generate sympathy in his Christian audience for the enslaved Africans in England and her colonies, but within African American culture it was material that continued to be of value and fundamental to “The Dream.”

            The work of Equiano’s contemporary, Jupiter Hammon, also uses Christianity in a similar method to define “The Dream.”   Hammon’s  “An Evening Thought:  Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries” contains themes of salvation, “Salvation comes by Jesus Christ alone” and redemption, “ [i]t is the Lord that doth supply with his Redeeming love” which are very direct in reference to spiritual salvation and redemption, but in a more covert sense are also grounded in the material conditions of most Africans in America at the time, enslavement.  Hammon’s poem cries out  “to set the Sinner free” and hear the “penitential Cry” of its suffering sinners, and again invokes and transforms the utopic sensibilities within Christianity in order express the “fallen” conditions of Africans in colonial America.    Hammon representation of  “The Dream” is set within the context of Christian rhetoric, but subtly recognizes the setback of enslaved Africans, yet looks forward to both their individual and collective freedom or “redemption and salvation.”  While these early Black writers offer insight into the origins and material conditions that produced “The Dream,” how did “The Dream” evolve and develop in the contemporary era.   Authors Toni Morrison and Sapphire both provide material for discussion.    

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is a complex work that concerns itself with the project of representing the African-American experience and the attempt to reconcile the history of the African-American and current conditions of the African-American experience. This project is developed primarily through Morrison’s protagonist Milkman Dead as he discovers who he is in both the sense of personal identity and also in a historical sense.  As Milkman works his way through this bildungsroman Morrison invokes the dream in ways that are similar to previous representations but also diverts from these representations and breaks into new territory.   Like Equiano and Hammon, Morrison references Christian imagery and allegory describing the youth of Milkman’s father, Macon Dead, and his aunt, Pilate, who spent their early years on the family farm, an Eden-like place called “Lincoln’s Heaven” (51).  Morrison may see the brief historical moment that followed the end of the civil war and the abolition of slavery as a brief moment of Utopia or Paradise for the newly freed slaves.   However, paradise is lost, and the children of the garden are cast out of Lincoln’s Heaven into the sinful world:  “Now the land itself, the only one they knew and knew intimately, began to terrify them […] all the affectionate things that had peopled their lives ever since they were born became ominous signs of a presence that was searching for them” (167). Morrison sees Macon and Pilate as the new black Adam and Eve that must find their way in the new and unfamiliar post-slavery world that harbors both old and new dangers.   However, “The Dream” is still evoked by Macon and Pilate’s father, Jake. He is a man that has overcome setbacks, specifically the brutality of slavery, and has strived and does achieve a level of dignity that is respected and desired by fellow ex-slaves turned farmers, “Looking at Milkman in those nighttime talks, they yearned for something.  Some word from him that would rekindle the dream and stop the death they were dying” [italics mine] (235-6).  While powerful Jakes story still ends in tragedy with his violent death, and Morrison needs another apparatus to inform her representation of the dream.  Morrison finds that apparatus outside of the Judeo-Christian theology with her reference to the myth of “the flying Africans.”   Elizabeth Martin recounts the myth of the flying Africans who were a magic people that once had wings and the ability to fly, but in time forgot their ability until they were enslaved, and in order to escape slavery, they recovered their ability and flew away  (Martin, course website).  Martin notes Milkman’s development is complete when he discovers his relation to the flying African, Solomon, and indeed this connection allows Milkman to take flight in his final confrontation with Guitar.   Morrison’s use of this myth harkens back to Equiano’s use of Christian imagery in describing his homeland, however, Morrison is not attempting to gain the sympathy of primarily white audience.  Morrison seems to understand the importance of cultural myths, like “the flying Africans” and “The Dream” in creating and developing identity that lies outside of the larger cultures narratives.

Push by poet and author Sapphire also taps into some of these same motifs, but also varies her representation of “The Dream.”  The novel’s very title is perhaps one of the most overt references to that quality of “The Dream” myth which calls for continued striving despite the limitations and harsh conditions or simply  “to keep on pushin’.”  Certainly that is the challenge of Sapphire’s illiterate and abused protagonist Claireece Precious Jones.  Sapphire also references similar imagery of flight as Precious dreams of escape, “She see herself dancing in videos, in the movies; she be breaking, fly, just a dancing, maybe, no! not maybe-she out there!” (26).  Certainly at this stage Precious’ dream of escape is informed by external cultural sources like movies and music videos with their slick packaging of ideologically infused images.  However, when Precious begins to recover and confront her past, she begins to experience the true dream:  “Everything is floating around me now […] I see flying.  Feel flying.  Am flying.” (131).  Once again flight is connected to escape, but not only from one’s material conditions, but also the bonds of psychological trauma, and within the work flight carries the same connotations that infuse “the Dream’s” desire for achieving dignity and to rise again. 

A second issue that plays a major role in Push is the role that literacy plays in the novel.   However, Sapphire is not breaking new ground when addressing the power that literacy has in transforming its subjects.  Frederick Douglass in his narrative makes it a key theme and one of the primary motivations that drove his desire to escape from slavery:  “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.  I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (369).  This same desire arises in Precious who, while not enslaved to someone else, is struggling to escape a world of poverty, abuse and ignorance.  Literacy also becomes the mode that allows Precious begins to develop a sense  autonomy and self-worth despite social services attempts to typologize her, “ Precious would benefit from any of the various workfare programs in existence.  Despite her obvious intellectual limitations she is quite capable of working as a home attendant” (121).  Precious’ reaction is volatile, “I don’t wanna be no mutherfucking home attendant!” (121), but becomes one of the  strongest examples of her development as an inner directed autonomous being, “No way!’ I scream.  “I’m getting my G.E.D., a job, and a place for me and Abdul, then I go to college’” (122).  In short, Precious expresses her desire to progress, to push beyond what traditional social system would determine as her lot in life, and instead invokes her version of  “The Dream” which might be very similar to the “American Dream” yet it is uniquely her own because of her previous invisibility in the larger culture.

The goal of this analysis was to examine how the African American notion of “The Dream” has been represented in a small survey of African-American literature.  Certainly there are ties between all the texts at various levels that show common threads in this representation including the use of Christian imagery and allegory, African myth, and the fundamental link between literacy and freedom.   However, a question that has yet to be addressed is, “are the representations of “The Dream” within these texts liberated from the “American Dream” they parallel or does the larger mythology subvert the minority narrative?”  It is apparent that the selections from the early period of this with their reference and reliance on Christian imagery is indicative of the larger culture’s influence on the narrative of the minority, and indeed Christianity within America during the early period, and some would still argue is still today, was a system of beliefs dominated by white ideology.  In even more subtle ways the notion of literacy, while acting as a key to freedom for several characters in the discussed texts, places emphasis on the individual not the larger group and serves a purpose in reinforcing romantic concepts of “American Individualism” versus a larger quest for group dignity as proposed by “The Dream”.   Yet the writers of these various works do resist the subversive influence the larger cultural narratives and mythologies, and at least represent the struggle of “The Dream” to survive and rise in the narrative of America.

Works Cited

Douglass, Fredrick. Narratives of the Life of Fredrick Douglass. 1845. The Classic Slave  Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Life of Olaudah Equiano. 1814. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

Hammon, Jupiter.  “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries” 1760.  Literature 5731 Course Handout.  Fall, 2004.

Martin, Elizabeth. “I’ll Fly Away, Oh Glory: The Flight of the Africans, From Myth to Reality.” Seminar in Minority Literature Website. Spring, 2003. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/midterms/midterms03/mt03martin.htm

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: The Penguin Group, 1977.

Sapphire. Push. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

White, Craig, Literature 5731: Seminar in Minority Literature Syllabus.  Fall, 2004.