A Ambrosius

Web Reviews:

Danielle Lynch-Masterson

“Sexual Oppression within Double Minorities in African American Literature”

LITR 5731 Midterm Spring 2006

            Lynch-Masterson's consideration of the concept of double minority is on a topic that is rather interesting to me. Her introduction establishes definitions and links her work to deBeauvior's work on self/other relations. The correlation of “likeable character” to the female characters' ability to transcend their “other”/“subject” status is an interesting assertion, and one that I find to be of rather modern character. I think that in older literature, nostalgic or overtly emotional appeals would have elicited more sympathy for an ever-suffering female character.

            Lynch-Masterson asserts that the specific issue of double minority is concerned as being an enslaved “woman is a burden because it compounds the oppressive nature of a slave-master relationship with sexuality.” I think this is a very concise definition of the concern of this type of double minority, and I agree that Harriet Jacobs' narrative in particular elucidates the difficulties a person would find in her position. Lynch-Masterson identifies Jacobs' strategy of having sex and children with another white man in the community as an instance of transcendence, and while I agree that this moment is one in which Jacobs escapes her defined roles, duties, and expectations, I do not think that the reader at the time of publication would be so sympathetic as to cite this as a “likeable character moment.” In fact, Jacobs seems to make clear that she expects to suffer some loss of reputation from this act.

            My strongest sentiment regarding Lynch-Masterson's findings is unfortunately disagreement. She writes, “Perhaps it is within modern literature that the best example of sexual oppression within a double minority exists,” and I am simply unable to make the leap with her to find this oppression justified by a “best example.” It may only be an issue of wording, or a concern about the concept of competitive suffering, but I think that the biggest difference between “modern literature,” the slightly older Song of Solomon, and the much older slave narratives is that modern writing depends much less on coding, much less on double language, and much more upon making the point very clear to the reader. I fear that diminishing the gratuity of historical sexual oppression and the multifold oppression that double (or multiple) minorities have faced leaves too much room for the willful ignorance of the legacies of rape culture, abuse culture, racist culture, and misogynist culture that make up the broader dominant culture of the United States, and that we all still face.

Helena Seuss

“Secret Choice, Silent Voice: The Power of the Dark”

LITR 5731 Midterm Spring 2010

            Seuss follows the patterns of color coding and double language to expose the nature of “conspiracy as the method by which the subjugated assert freedom from their subjugators, and the implications of assimilation which that freedom entails.” I have read the slave narratives (Equiano, Douglass, and Jacobs) for this course and realized that any plans that enslaved people made to escape would of necessity be secret, but I did not consider the depth of this need until I read Douglass' narrative, particularly the passage in which he declines to provide the details of his escape, as he claimed that it gave slaveholders and slave hunters too much information.

            Jacobs and Douglass obviously kept only their own counsel when devising various plans for learning, family, and escape. This is a hard thing to remember as a reader, given the narrative and conversational style of these writings, but as Seuss reminds the reader, Jacobs does not “[extend] her voice into the Incidents, making a powerful appeal on behalf of enslaved women,” until she has made her escape; obviously such a thing would have been impossible until her liberation. Douglass also must maintain silence, not only from “masters” but also from his fellow enslaved men, aside from those who are a part of his plan, and risk their own lives and freedom.

            Seuss pursues the theme of secrecy into Song of Solomon and ferrets out the incident with Foster in the first chapter of the novel, connecting the violence and secrecy of the Days with the depth of their love for their people. Guitar, as the main face of the Days to the reader, seems insensible to the concept of love, but Foster's breakdown in the window demonstrates the  effects of the co-stressors of love and action, such that I can connect the Days not just to the Black Panthers or Malcolm X, but also to the concept of chosen family that I have partially pursued in my midterm exam.

Jennifer Rieck

“Ruth: 'She’s “Alone in this World, and a Fucked up World it is too'”

LITR 5731 Midterm Fall 2007

            I briefly scanned a previous web review for this midterm essay and saw several points that interested me, not least the name. Ruth in Song of Solomon is a complex character who seems to receive only mild pity, rather than the outright affection or interest that readers seem to evince for her son, Macon “Milkman” Dead.  Rieck links family affiliation, particularly that of the mother, as crucial to the development of identity, a point that I echo in my own essay, and she links this lack to Ruth's lack of identity development.

            The parallels that Rieck draws between Macon's treatment of his wife and slaveholders' treatment of enslaved people make me wonder why I read their relationship so tolerantly. Of course, I thought the relationship problematic, but the incidents she describes come straight from a domestic violence checklist, particularly in how, as Rieck writes, Macon keeps Ruth “alienated from her immediate family, her extended family, and the people of her community.”

            Rieck's interpretation of Ruth definitely could inspire readers to more sympathy for the character, but I do find it interesting that she omits Ruth's conversation with Milkman after he has caught her in a visit to her father's grave. During their conversation, Ruth does indeed tell Milkman her side of the story regarding her visit at her father's deathbed, during which Macon has claimed that Ruth was naked in the bed with her father. However, this oversight does tend to highlight the author's bigger point regarding Ruth's silence and the degree to which other stories overtake her own.

Midterm Essay:

 “It's a Family Thang”

            Growing up in my own little sociocultural niche, I began to notice, in grocery stores, shopping malls, schools and other places, primarily African-American people wearing t-shirts printed with sayings (like the title of this essay) and names. “The Washington Family Reunion” would be printed over a graphic of a tree or a heart, and there would be a place and a range of dates. From seeing pictures and hearing stories, I knew that sometimes hundreds of people would gather, wear these t-shirts, pose for pictures and attend family geneaology seminars detailing the 3^rd cousins, the twice-removeds, the by-marriages and the begats.  I didn't understand why people had any compulsion to print identical t-shirts and spend long weekends with virtual strangers, growing up as I had in relative family privilege. Considering the course objectives involved with race, family, and identity has led me to a deeper understanding of these t-shirts as documents of resistance, solidarity, and self.

            African people brought as slaves to the United States were dehumanized by a variety of systemic practices, but the term of dehumanization is one that may not be as effective as another: decontextualization. Humans obviously don't form identity solely in response to place; the idea of self also comes from one’s interactions with others. Additionally, the relationships that people form as children influence personality. Olaudah Equiano opens his narrative with an elaborately detailed description of the setting of his life prior to his enslavement. These details of place and relation establish his individual identity as a member of “a nation of dancers, musicians and poets.” His freedom of movement and expression are violently disrupted by his capture, but so is his identity as a member of the number who are so free. His family and people “implanted”  nuanced social/cultural details and practices” in Equiano with “great care” and their “impression” persisted in him, despite his young age, and formed aspects of identity that servitude could not completely dissolve. As would become standard practice in the American system of chattel slavery, Equiano was separated, and eventually lost contact with any people who knew his language—this complete alienation created  a situation in which a person would become literally voiceless, without choice, agency, or a stable grounding on which to develop an independent identity. 

            Frederick Douglass also writes about the pain of separation and the callous regularity of the practice of removing enslaved people from one another.  Very early on in his narrative, he relates his removal from his mother as part of a widespread strategy employed by slaveholders in order to “hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to . . . destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child.” This done, the children of slaves were halfway orphaned, and as in Douglass' case, the child of rape perpetuated by white male slaveholders had no acknowledged father. The slaveholder’s job of orphaning and dehumanization was completely done. This destabilization made slavery, rather than family, the central aspect of the young enslaved person's life, and made “slave”/object one's primary identification. Despite being removed from his own family, Douglass demonstrates the development of situational and alternative family groups in response to the social limitations slavery imposed on its victims. He refers to fellow-slaves as his “brethren” throughout his narrative. The enrichment that his soul finds in teaching other slaves to read and write corresponds to the richness of their association, their common purpose and their common position.  He similarly refers to the group of men with whom he plans his first major attempt at escape as his family. Both family groups, as with Douglass’ genetic/biological family, were disrupted by outside forces; however, Douglass’ struggle for a larger, vastly extended family continued once he was outside of slavery; the dedication in his Appendix cites his desire that his narrative do something to bring “deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds.” This extended familial language also represents the idea of responsibility to the broader community that reveals itself in the literature; this statement puts both the narrative and those still suffering under slavery into context.

            The narrative of Harriet Jacobs/Lynda Brent provides some insight into the mindset of the child born into an intact family unit who only learns of her status as slave as an older child. She painfully matured into an enslaved parent who saw the destabilization of families around her, a frustrated bride unable to wed the free man of her choice, and a mother who used strategy to the best of her ability to protect her potential offspring. Jacobs experienced extended family relations, as she was able to remain close to her grandmother, but even this relationship is not without difficulty. Jacobs represents the trouble of the family tie; she acknowledges openly that family affection could impede one’s bid for freedom, putting the human tie of loyalty and love at a crossroads with the desire for independence and agency.

            Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, as a work of fiction, obviously represents family in a different way than the slave narratives do; however, there are overlapping concerns of identity and family. The nuclear Dead family is presented as stable and outwardly successful, but the main character, Milkman, does not find his true identity within the four walls on Not Doctor Street. Sharing some features of the coming of age narrative, Song presents the immediate family as a unit of control and domination, but in an exploration of his extended family—the roots of his ancestors—Milkman discovers family and familial context as a source of identity.  Milkman journeys to find an inheritance, which his father interprets as gold and his aunt interprets as bone. What he finds along the way, however, are the origins of “Macon Dead” as a conceptual being. His namesake, “Macon Dead, also known as Jake somebody” does not give Milkman his socially recognized name, and the orginal Macon Dead once had an original name, and familial standing as either one of the original 21 children of Solomon, or the “only son of Solomon.” These are stripped from him, as well as his descendants, by the drink-addled pen of a careless white Freedmen's Bureau clerk. Compellingly, both the first Toni Morrison interview from the class presentation and Song of Solomon itself directly invoke family and identity. The novel's dedication page reads simply “Daddy,” and in the interview, Morrison discusses her grief over her father's death. Of course she misses him, but the bigger point that she makes is that his death killed his version of her. The death of a loved one as a severance of an avenue to self/identity is a compelling argument for the notion of the connectedness of family and identity.

            Family is complicated and complex; in the case of enslaved people in the United States, the notion of family was manipulated by strong cultural forces as well as the whims of empowered individuals. These complications troubled one source of identity and created multiplicity in the notion of family as well, which gives rise to a host of family types and issues: acknowledged family, unacceptable family, genetic family, chosen/circumstantial family, and the extensive family networks of ownership and relation through which slaves lived. Serious ironies, to say the absolute least, are presented when the boundaries of slave and slave-holder are crossed “in the family way,” and they have had continuing effects on individuals as well as the culture at large.

Research Plan:

No Country for Old Women

            The elder female is all but invisible in the modern dominant United States culture in terms of social power. Current popular understanding, evidenced by the Wikipedia chart of literary stock characters (a page I chose deliberately to exemplify a popular, rather than specialized or academic discussion) reveals consideration of the crone as inherently malicious. Other roles listed for elder women include that of the hag,  as in Hansel and Gretel, and that of the sexually rapacious widow, who may make a fool of herself in pursuing her desires (her desire is foolish because she is no longer sexually desirable or fertile). Therefore, in terms of minority, elder women are excluded due to a combination of sexism and ageism.  Western European cultures  have a figure, called the crone, who represents the elder woman; a subquestion may be whether or not it is appropriate to overlay this concept to figures from other cultures.

            However, exclusion is not monolithically the case: minority American literature presents places for older women in terms of social influence and, in some cases, mythic/mystical powers (or a blend of the two). Toni Morrison's Pilate, and Anaya's Ultima seem to balance these two aspects of power, while Harriet Jacobs' grandmother represents more literal social power.  I intend to investigate the roles available to elder women in minority fiction and memoir/personal narrative in order to shed some light on the omissions of mainstream/dominant culture, to suggest additions to the modern canon of literary characters, and to develop a conference proposal and presentation.