Slave Narratives as Protest Writing AS/HUMA 1300 Faculty of Arts

Course Outline: Slave narratives as protest writing 1.The Abolitionist Movement 2. Slave Narratives as Autobiography 3. Function of Narratives 4. Characteristics of Narratives 5. Gender and Slave Narratives Course Outline: Slave narratives as protest writing

Abolitionist Movements British Caribbean 1770s-1830s; British anti-slavery activists lobbying British Parliament; Paternalistic Christianity. United States 1830s-1870; Evangelical religious movements of the 1830s; Active participation of northern blacks and ex-slaves. Abolitionist Movements

. . . autobiography must be understood as a recollective/narrative act in which the writer, from a certain point in his life—the present—looks back over the events of that life and recounts them in such a way as to show how history has led to this present state of being. (James Olney, Autobiography) Autobiography

5 Functions of Slave Narratives 1. To document the conditions of or ”truth” about slavery 2. To encourage the abolition of slavery 3. To provide religious inspiration 4. To assert the narrator’s personhood 5. To challenge stereotypes about blacks 5 Functions of Slave Narratives

. . . The black slave’s narrative came to be a communal utterance, a collective tale, rather than merely an individual’s autobiography. Each slave author, in writing about his or her personal life’s experiences, simultaneously wrote on behalf of millions of silent slaves still held captive . . . All blacks would be judged—on their character, integrity, intelligence, manners and morals and their claim to warrant emancipation—on this published evidence produced by one of their number. (Classic Slave Narratives 2) Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

8 Characteristics of Slave Narratives 1. A preface as authenticating material or testimony 2. First sentence begins: “I was born . . .” 3. Details of the first observed whipping 4. An account of a hardworking slave who refuses to be whipped 5. Details of the quest for literacy 6. Account of a slave auction 7. Description of attempts to escape 8. Appendix of documentary material 8 Characteristics of Slave Narratives

Mythological Pattern of Slave Narratives 1. Loss of innocence 2. Realization of alternatives to bondage and resolve to be free 3. Escape 4. Freedom obtained Mythological Pattern of Slave Narratives

It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. (Classic Slave Narratives 364) Frederick Douglass