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

Kimberly Dru Pritchard

March 2, 2006

  Redefining the Traditional Community:

 The Alternative Community in

The Classic Slave Narratives, Song of Solomon and Push

            Traditionally, a community provides protection and solace in a world of growing violence and destruction. One’s community may be a gathering place for friends and family or a safety net that protects and soothes. Furthermore, a community may provide a sense of self, belonging, and identity.  However, throughout the history of our nation, certain cultural and ethnic groups have been forced to alter or even replace the traditional models of community with alternative prototypes in order to survive in the dominant culture’s world.  This especially rings true for minority cultures not only in today’s world but throughout the history of our nation as well.

            Perhaps it is the African American culture that provides one of the truest models of a culture’s need to re-evaluate “community” and subsequently redefine it and its place within the dominant culture. For centuries, the African American has struggled to define his world in terms of the traditional community, but often, the traditional model fails and is subsequently replaced by an alternative version better suited to meet individual needs. African American literature provides insight into this phenomenon as authors strive to define the culture and traditions of an oppressed people forced into conformity at the hand of the white man.  Authors such as Olaudah Equiano and Harriet Jacobs offer personal narratives chronicling their lives as slaves who, stripped of their humanity, manage to rise above the dominant culture’s oppression and replace the long-established community with one that brings the heretofore absent sense of belonging and ultimately, identity.  Moreover, contemporary authors such as Toni Morrison and Sapphire substantiate the breakdown of the traditional community and its replacement with alternative versions in their respective novels Song of Solomon and Push.

              Slave narratives such as Equiano’s The Life of Olaudah Equiano and Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl provide models for the contemporary authors that reveal the need for alternative communities within the minority culture. Olaudah Equiano relates the traumatic tale of his abduction and subsequent sale into slavery with startling detail.  Abducted from their homes “when all [their] people were gone out to their work,” Equiano and his sister were “seized…without [given time] to cry out, or to make any resistance” (25).  Forced onto a slave ship filled with hundreds of slaves from many different African nations, Equiano often comments that he is placed where “not one soul…could talk to [him]” (39).  The deplorable conditions in which Equiano and the other slaves live while aboard the ship are far from ordinary, yet the basic human need for community ultimately brings the strangers to form a pseudo-community in order to survive the treacherous voyage and find some sense of belonging.

 Another such alternative community is formed when Equiano befriends young Richard Baker, and the pair spends two years together at sea.  The young boy was a “native of America…and was of a most amiable temper” (41).  Faced with a situation in which his traditional community has vanished, Equiano forms an alternative community or family unit with the young Richard, and basically, they are inseparable for nearly two years.  As a result, Equiano finds a sense of self-worth even though it is short-lived.

Like Equiano, Harriet Jacobs forms a pseudo-community in order to endure the harsh reality of her enslavement.  Her traditional, familial model, the Flint family, fails her time and again because of the dysfunctional perverseness present in the home.  When Jacobs turns 15, her master “began to whisper foul words in [her] ear,” and after “repeated quarrels between the doctor and his wife, he announced his intention to take his youngest daughter…to sleep in his apartment” (361).  Dr. Flint’s choice to bring his daughter into his sleeping quarters naturally includes the addition of a servant to “sleep in the same room” (361).  The wicked Dr. Flint chooses Jacobs as his daughter’s nursemaid, and the traditional community immediately disintegrates as husband and wife are separated and child and slave move into the wife’s position.  

For Jacobs, the community in which she is thrown is completely contradictory to that which has been modeled by her grandmother and other immediate family.  As a free woman, the grandmother’s traditional home “fondly shielded” Jacobs so much so that she “never dreamed [she] was a piece of merchandise,” and she “trusted to them for safe keeping” (341).  However, the Flint household offers no safety, consolation, or sense of self for Jacobs, and she is thus forced to create the alternative community that enables her to reclaim her sense of self and cope with the dominant culture’s unorthodox living arrangements.  Jacobs escapes the clutches of the Flint family and for nearly seven years resides in a garret that was only “nine feet long and seven feet wide” located in her grandmother’s garage (437).  During the time she resides in the garret, her comfort arrives in the form of the voices of her children playing outside and by occasional chats with her grandmother, Uncle Phillip, and Aunt Nancy who bring food, water, and supplies.  Thus, Jacobs forms a pseudo-community that brings her a semblance of comfort, and she is far removed from the Flint’s dysfunctional albeit traditional community.  The formation of this alternative home allows Jacobs to replace Flint’s defective community with one that provides at least a small amount of protection from the ever present sexual innuendoes of Dr. Flint.

The slave narratives offer only a glimpse into the minority world’s troubles as slaves struggle to endure a life that seems to be an afterthought in the white man’s world.  Likewise, in contemporary literature, African American authors such as Toni Morrison and Sapphire create characters and situations that further illuminate the plight of the black man in a white society as well as his need to replace the traditional community with one that is alternative yet functional.  In Morrison’s Song of Solomon, one of the pervading themes centers on the different types of communities in the novel and how they do and do not function for particular characters.  Perhaps one of the most obvious examples comes from the Dead household.  Externally, the Dead family functions traditionally taking rides on “Sunday afternoons [that] had become rituals,” and giving Ruth a chance “to display her family” (31). 

However, the traditional community in the Dead household exists only as a facade as each member of the family functions entirely separate from the family unit.  As Danny Corrigan explains in his 2004 midterm, “For all intents and purposes, this dysfunctional family may as well be dead, for none of them have a life. A total lack of communication has effectively closed all the doors in the home, as each member seems to live within [his/her] own, small room.”  This is mainly due to the fact that each family member hides a secret that prevents him or her from completely committing to the family.  For example, Ruth Dead, unable to shed the secret of her incestuous past, lives in a sexless marriage devoid of passion and love. In creating her alternative community, Ruth finds comfort nursing her four year old son and weaves a somewhat perverted fantasy allowing herself to believe that the baby’s “lips were pulling from her a thread of light.  It was as though she were a cauldron issuing spinning gold” (13).  Moreover, Ruth seeks comfort in not only her oddly incestuous memories of her deceased father but also in her strange, late night visits to his grave, and again, this further establishes Ruth’s alternative community.

 Milkman follows his mother one evening after hearing about her sordid past from his father. Ruth, startled by her son’s sudden appearance at the gates of the graveyard, tries “desperately to normalize the situation…searching for words and manners and civilization” (123).  Milkman inquires of his mother, “You come to lay down on your father’s grave? Spending a night every now and then with your father?” (123). Thanks to Macon Dead, who has indelicately shared his wife’s distasteful past with his son, Milkman wants to know “why couldn’t anybody in his whole family just be normal?” (123). Just as the traditional community breaks apart for Equiano and Jacobs, Milkman’s family community also disintegrates. At this point, however, Milkman does not reinvent a community suitable to his needs. It is his mother who forms an alternative community, a quasi-relationship with her dead father, and this allows her a sense of self and identity heretofore absent in her marriage to Macon.

In contrast to Ruth’s need to create an alternative community, Macon Dead exists in a world completely devoid of community, and he makes no effort to reclaim it.  He exists in a world detached, and “his hatred of his wife glittered and sparked in every word he spoke to her” (10).  Furthermore, his “disappointment…in his daughters sifted down on them like ash…choking the lilt out of what should have been girlish voices” (10).  Essentially, Macon Dead has not only choked the life out of himself but his family and all those that surround him as he is “a hard man, with a manner so cool it discouraged casual or spontaneous conversation” (15).  Obviously, Morrison creates Macon Dead as such for a specific purpose.  Macon Dead, out of touch with his community, his family, and ultimately his own identity, serves as the impetus for Milkman’s desire and need to search for his ancestors. Ironically, it is Milkman, the character who always seems to thrive in the various different communities in the novel, who searches for the alternative world that ultimately brings him an identity of which he can be proud.

Milkman’s new community evolves when he leaves home in search of the gold that his father and Pilate discovered years ago in a secluded cave.  Up to this point in his life, Milkman had never truly understood himself in relation to his family and friends.  However, “under the moon, on the ground, alone…his self-the cocoon that was his ‘personality’-gave way” (277).  Milkman “was only his breath…and his thoughts.  The rest of him had disappeared,” and it is here that “the thoughts came, unobstructed by other people, by things, [or] even by the sight of himself” (277).  As Milkman unfolds the mysteries surrounding his ancestors, he unravels his own identity thus forming an alternative community that not only brings him a sense of belonging but a measure of happiness as well. 

The break down of the traditional community and the recreation of an alternative one takes place on many levels in Morrison’s Song of Solomon.  Not only do members of the Dead household create pseudo-communities, but their extended family is also forced to find alternatives to the traditional model.  Obviously, Milkman’s traditional family community failed, or better yet, never truly existed.  Therefore, like other members of his family, he is forced to create a community that works in his behalf.  The lesson learned comes full circle for Milkman when he returns to tell his immediate family and his aunt, Pilate, the news he uncovers regarding their ancestors.  Then, Milkman, along with Pilate, returns to Shalimar to bury his grandfather’s bones.  “There was general merriment at his quick return, and Pilate blended into the population like a stick of butter in a churn” (335).  Obviously, Milkman has found the place where he belongs, and he knows that “if [he] surrendered to the air, [he] could ride it” (337).

Milkman’s quest for independence and community leads him through a maze of difficulties and eventual revelations.  Morrison takes care to offer Milkman alternative communities with the promise of self-identity and a sense of belonging.  Like Milkman, Precious, in Sapphire’s novel Push must also travel through a labyrinth of untold secrets and difficulties in order to find the alternative community that suits not only her needs but those of her child as well.  The traditional community in which we find Precious at the beginning of the novel serves only to isolate and endanger her from future success. Not only does Precious endure horrific verbal, physical and sexual abuse at home, she also sits in the classroom day after day, afraid to tell her teachers the truth about reading.  She admits only to the reader that “page 122 look[s] like page 152, 22, 3, 6, 5-all the pages look alike” (5). 

Precious’ traditional community, at home and at school, offers absolutely no reassurance or protection. In fact, danger and despair exist in both of her worlds.   Her home community fails her the moment her father begins his sexual abuse. Her learning community also fails her, and this young woman explains that “second grade, third grade, [and] fourth grade seem like one dark night [because] Carl is the night and [she] disappear[s] in it” (18).   Precious Jones’ learning community fails her for the exact same reason that her home community fails her. Yet, even as she struggles to maintain a sense of normalcy in her twisted world, she somehow understands on another level the stark reality that no one wants or needs her.  She is merely a “vampire sucking the system’s blood” (31).  Furthermore, not only does Precious see herself as unloved and unwanted in her own world, she also believes that she is invisible and therefore unnecessary in the white world. She explains that she sees “the pink faces in suits look over [the] top of [her] head. [She watches herself] disappear in their eyes” (31).  Ironically, however, it is that prejudiced white world that eventually saves Precious from her unspeakable dilemma. 

Precious, in fact, creates two alternative communities to replace those that fall short.  First, she creates a fantasy-community inside her mind that changes her reality and allows her to endure her father’s sexual abuse.  When Carl visits her bedroom, Precious reinvents herself and enters the fantasy world where she is accepted and loved.  She explains, “Then, I change stations, change bodies, I be dancing in videos!  In movies!  I be breaking, fly, jus’ a dancing…heating up the stage at the Apollo…They love me!” (24). Moreover, she also stares “at [the] wall until [the] wall is a movie, Wizard of Oz, [and she] can make that one play anytime” (111). This internal dialogue, or alternative community, allows Precious to exist in another world and disengage from the ongoing sexual abuse. Her substitute community allows her to form an alternative identity as well as a protective shield that takes her far from the reality of her father’s exploitation.

Even when Precious is not suffering physical and sexual abuse, she silently moves in and out of her “inside world” where she is “pretty, like a[n] advertisement girl on [a] commercial” (35).  Similar to a sort of motivational “self-talk,” this internal community gives Precious the means to cope with her past as well as mold her future. Even though Precious succeeds in creating an internal community to replace her tragically perverse albeit traditional community, she certainly cannot survive on that alone. Consequently, in an effort to completely escape and ultimately reformulate her self-identity, Precious turns to the institutional community, the Each One Teach One alternative school, in order to save herself from certain destruction.  Ironically, at the beginning of the novel, Precious consistently rejects the “system” or “institution” that has provided her mother the means to shelter, feed, and clothe her. Moreover, she resents the intrusion of Mrs. Lichenstein, the principal who removes her from traditional school and recommends the alternative program. 

Precious learns at a young age that a visit from a white woman like Mrs. Lichenstein spells trouble as the almighty welfare check comes into question. Yet Precious, pushed beyond her physical and emotional limits and starved for attention, affection, and a sense of belonging, puts aside her own prejudices regarding the system and embraces an alternative community.  Just as Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Milkman Dead replace their traditional yet dysfunctional community with an alternative version, so does Precious Jones seek solace in her newfound community of women who share a common goal.  She proudly admits that “these girlz is my friends.  I been like the baby in a way ‘cause I was only 16 first day I walk in.  They visit at hospital…and take up a collection when Mama kick me out and bring stuff to 1/2way house for me…They and Ms Rain is my friends and family” (95).  Furthermore, Precious finds herself mentoring the new girls who arrive offering them reassurance and comfort just as Miss Rain did for her on her first day in alternative school.  Now, she is the one who says “’keep on keepin’ on!’” to the girls in her class (94). Precious has come full-circle by opening her heart and mind to new possibilities and avenues for self-fulfillment.  Her alternative communities, both internal and external, serve to cushion her life of abuse as well as motivate her to discover and conquer her demons.

The dominant culture has certainly worked to suppress the traditional community in the African American culture.  From the chains of slavery to the untold sexual abuse of Precious Jones, the black community has been forced to search for alternative communities in which to thrive and advance.  Obviously, Equiano and Jacobs formed alternative communities in order to survive the horrors heaped upon them by the dominant culture’s ignorance and hatred.  Furthermore, each member of Morrison’s Dead family reinvents the traditional community in order to escape the reality of his/her past and present life.  Milkman Dead’s newly formed self-identity as well as his restructured, alternative community serves not only to mature this 40-something man-boy, but it also moves him toward a clearer understanding of human nature. Finally, it is through the eyes of Precious that the reader comes to understand the desperate need for alternative communities among minority cultures.  Stripped of her identity and robbed of her childhood, Precious rises above her mother and father’s verbal, sexual, and emotional destruction and discovers the protective cocoon of her “girlz” (95).   African American literature indeed provides countless examples of the failure of the traditional community and its subsequent replacement with an alternative version, and perhaps this model serves as an example of society’s need to re-evaluate traditional community values and  boundaries in order to better understand the dilemma that faces a minority culture in today’s world.