LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature
 Sample Student Midterm, Spring 2006

Danielle Lynch-Masterson

March 2, 2006

Sexual Oppression within Double Minorities in African American Literature

Throughout history, evidence of sexual oppression is shown in African American literature to the extent that it becomes a defining characteristic of the genre. That is, without it, identity seems to be lost completely. African American literature remains unique in that their participation in our society was involuntary from the 1800s. Most of whom were slaves, African American women also remained voiceless and filled their role involuntarily. Taking into consideration these facts, the oppression is obvious to see. Simone de Beauvoir introduced existentialist ethics and the theory of “the one” and “the other” in The Second Sex to describe the relationship between men and women. de Beauvior says that “the one” or men are subjects, controlling the gaze of “the other,” the women or the objects (xxxiv). As she states and as is evident in the African American selections, these oppressed women have their purpose decided for them, therefore their essence precedes their existence.  However, in a twist to her existentialist theory, the women in the selections are actually able to transcend their situations; much like de Beauvior claims only men or “subjects” are able to, thus disproving their imminence. Perhaps the construction of their double minority is to credit for this transcendence. Fitting a woman into an already-minority role will naturally introduce domination that is sexual in nature. Both sexual abuse and the role of the double minority consent to female protagonists in the following selections being oppressed. However, this burden also begs that the characters transcend their misfortune, as de Beauvoir claims only men do, thus making them more powerful, relatable and likable to the reader.

In Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, we are introduced to the double minority. That is, the character of Jacobs, a slave, being born both black and a woman.  Already, the reader recognizes the plight a black woman deal with in the 21st century, making that of a slave in the 1800s even more astonishing. As we’re introduced to Jacob’s life with her master, Dr. Flint, we are immediately inundated with the sexual authority the doctor has over her. As a much older man, with Jacobs, a teenager, his authority exists both in age and sex. The fact that she is an African American slave, ostensibly belonging to his daughter, is merely an additional influence he has over her.

Dr. Flint controlled Jacobs’ gaze, much like de Beauvior claims men control women’s, instantly oppressing her.  This is evident in Erin Gouner’s 2001 essay “Ain’t I a woman?,” in which relates the “slavery” and burden of being a woman to being a felon in a penitentiary. Being a woman is a burden because it compounds the oppressive nature of a slave-master relationship with sexuality, as evidenced throughout the book. According to Gouner, Jacobs’ “master controls every aspect of her life — her workload, her portion of food, her living conditions, and her punishments.”

The story is riddled with sexual oppression, making the double minority status of African American women downright dangerous. When Jacobs’ finds a young slave girl on the verge of death during childbirth with a seemingly white child, she cries “O Lord, come and take me,” (455) and whether this wish for death was due to pain or helpless situation, the reader is only shown Mrs. Flint’s cruel nature when she proclaims “You suffer, do you? I’m glad of it. You deserve it all, and more too” (455). Not only is the slave girl oppressed by the rape that resulted in this child, presumably by the slave master, Mr. Flint, but also by another woman. Though Mrs. Flint is a woman and is oppressed within her own culture, she is merely subjugated by sex and not race. Further, she blames the young slave girl for having sex with her husband, placing the blame of the relationship on her, though it is obvious that she was choiceless in the matter, evidenced in the slave girls thankfulness to God for “taking her away from the greater bitterness of life” (455).

By the time Jacobs’ was fifteen, she began to experience Dr. Flint’s sexual advances when he began to “whisper foul words” (470) into her ear. In addition to their master-slave relationship, her youth left her powerless in refusing his advances. Trying to “corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled,” (470) Jacobs’ claims Dr. Flint relentlessly attempted to both frighten and charm her into a sexual relationship, only making Mrs. Flint “full of jealousy and rage,” (470) leaving her truly imminent, with ironically, the gaze being stared upon her.  

In an act of utter protest, she becomes pregnant with a white lawyer’s child; her first essence of transcendence. Though it did not thwart Dr. Flint’s advances, it is the first time she truly stood up for herself, allowing the reader to relate to her struggle and identify with her situation. Later escaping Dr. Flint’s tyranny and moving into a crawl space to keep watch of her children, Jacobs’ defines what it means to be a woman. Defying Dr. Flint and making the love for her children a top priority, a reader further identifies with her, elevating her powerful nature as a woman and the reader’s ability to relate. 

Classic Literature also offers several instances of transcendence and reclaiming of power by African American women. In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, we are first introduced to Ruth, who claims she has been sexually denied and “hadn’t had physical relations” (125) with her husband, Macon Dead, alluding to repression. It isn’t until Pilate, Macon’s sister, comes to town that Ruth is able to transcend her dilemma. Acting as witch doctor of sorts, Pilate gives Ruth “funny things to do … and some greenish-gray grassy looking-stuff to put in his food” (125). In an effort to win her husband back, Ruth follows Pilate’s orders, ending in the conception of her youngest child and protagonist, Milkman. In fact, when Macon suspect’s the pregnancy is somehow Pilate’s doing, he demands that Ruth abort the baby. Though she does not, she claims she “wouldn’t have been strong enough without her (Pilate)” (125). A rare case, Pilate was a role model and one of the only African American women who seemed unfazed by sexual oppression, never spending a moment in imminence. Able to transcend any oppression her race or sex could gain her, Pilate is instantly likable to readers.

In an effort to further marginalize Ruth sexually and alienate her emotionally, Macon accuses her of having sex with her own father to Milkman. Macon claims after Ruth’s father’s death, he found her lying in bed with him “naked as a yard dog, kissing him (73). Disgusted and bewildered, Milkman follows his mother to her father’s gravesite where he confronts her and for the first time in Ruth’s life, she defends her own honor to her son. Claiming she is a “small woman,” (124) Ruth acknowledges her voice that had been stifled for many years. Revealing the sexual denial she suffered at the hands on Macon, this disclosure freed the secrets she carried for many years. It also took back control of the power Milkman thought he had over his mother in the news he heard from his father; a sexually perverse and incestuous relationship. Lacking power as a double minority, in her revelations, Ruth is finally about to transcend the unhappy relationship she and Macon existed in for many years.

Perhaps it is within modern literature that the best example of sexual oppression within a double minority exists. In Sapphire’s novel, Push, the reader is introduced to an illiterate mother of two, Claireece Precious Jones. Precious’ life hadn’t been easy since she was born. Severely sexually abused and raped by her father at an easy age, Jones’ innocence was violated by a man who was much older than her, putting her at even more of a disadvantage. She is not only oppressed physically, but also emotionally. The abuse stymied her ability to rationalize the emotions she was experiencing; even sometimes enjoying the sex and attention she got from her father, which, at the age of 12, resulted in a pregnancy and a child with Down ’s syndrome that spends most of its life in an institution.

Additionally, much like Harriet Jacobs’ story, Precious’ mother accuses her seducing her husband, calling her “Jezebel” and “Miss Hot to trot” (19) and otherwise verbally abusing her, placing the blame on Precious for the loss of her relationship. Physically abusing Precious as well as molesting her, the mother cannot see past the immediate and current situation. As a double minority, many times you are oppressed by your own; that is, another double minority. Trapped in imminence herself, Precious’ mother, filled with fury, chose to blame her own daughter and continue the oppression, she herself had experienced, rather than think beyond the situation she has trapped herself in. Rebellious, Precious leaves her mother’s home; her first act of defiance and first step to transcendence.

Despite all of this, Precious marched on. Knowing she had to make a better life for her and her two children, she returns to an alternative school in hopes of learning to read and obtaining her G.E.D. With an education, Precious continues her acts of insubordination, with the intent of becoming what many African American women had no hopes of becoming, informed and capable. At school, Precious meets Ms. Rain, an influential and powerful African American woman she later learns in also a lesbian. It is with the help of Ms. Rain and the fellow minority women in her class that she is able to develop the momentum to create a better life for herself. Her honest desire to learn to read is evidenced in her perseverance when she writes “Listen baby. Muver love you. Muver not dumb” (66). Speaking to her unborn child at this point, she is also speaking to the child within herself; the child she was never allowed to be; the child who was never told they were loved.

Realizing that what’s happened in the past cannot be a crutch for her future, Precious works hard at moving on with her life, including living in a halfway house to keep her and her son in a safe environment. Keeping a journal to communicate with Ms. Rain and allowing her to reflect on her thoughts, Precious expresses her desire to rise above the hand she was dealt in life. The journal took away Precious’ voicelessness and made way for her to become anything she wanted in life.

Despite beginning to transcend, Precious hits another snag when she is diagnosed with the AIDS virus, but it seems as if it is in the acceptance of this mind-blowing news that Precious truly transcends her past. With her father, and the father of her two children dead from the disease and her mother cut off from her from the most part, Precious can begin to think for herself and be a person her parent’s denied she could become.

All three of the female protagonists in the selections seemed to rise above remarkable odds. Portraying the roles of a double minority, all three characters are naturally oppressed and downtrodden. However, it is because of the negative treatment, bad experiences and lessons learned that these women are able to transcend their lives and in the end, literally become “the one” instead of “the other” as defined by de Beauvoir. It is in going beyond what typically oppressed women do and what we all desire to do that make the characters of Jacobs, Ruth and Precious so likable. Becoming self-sufficient and gaining their own voice over the course of their stories, the three protagonists take back the power stripped from women since Original Sin, leaving the reader with a final thought; we may not always have a choice, but we can always have a voice.

Works Cited

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (trans. H.M. Parshley). New York: Penguin, 1972  (1949).