Bits and Pieces of Clotel

As the beginning of this novel is slightly jumpy so shall this post be.

First of all I was thinking about the footnote that explains that Brown wrote the 3rd person narrative of his life and so went against the convention that a white abolitionist write the intro in order to legitimize the work. This makes me think about other introductions and about why a novel with a forward from a big name author would sell more than the same novel without that forward. What is it about tying a so-called “great” author with a lesser known one that makes the latter more legitimate? I suppose if you enjoy the work of an author you may like writings that the author likes, but not necessarily. Also there are quotes from other authors on about every other page in Clotel. Why use so many words from other authors if you are trying to legitimize yourself as an author in and of yourself? I dont know the answers to these questions I just thought they were interesting points to consider.

Second I have to say that some parts of this book were fairly difficult for me to get through and I had to take a couple of breaks and collect myself before I could go on. I think that the worst part was in the chapter titled “the religious teacher.” Although I had known that religion was used to support slavery it was horrifying to see an example of it played out. The way that religion works for both slaves and slave owners is fascinating as well. We see the owners twist the verses to meet their needs but we also see that the slaves, not only deny that God could have created them to be slaves to the white people but they also embrace the God given to them and use him to strengthen them against their owners.

The relationship between Mr. Peck and Georgiana was also interesting in that she went away to the north for school and came back much more “radical” than her parent. It seems that this model is often seen still today with the next generation moving away from the ideals of their parents, in either direction.

Last thing: It seems to me that the word servant is used in place of the word slave quite often in the text. Was this a common word-choice at the time or something that Brown does deliberately?