Skewed History

Throughout Clotel there are references in the footnotes to possible skewed chronology (pg  196 footnote 4) . This particular example points out how Morton could not have died in 1831 if he was to help Salome in the 1840s. I think there is more to do with this skewing of time than just accounting for Brown wanting to tell stories that didn’t necessarily coincide. I think he’s doing several important things through this shifting and restructuring of time.

First, I think Brown is pointing out the fluid nature of history – how it is written by the dominant force of the time, and how its content and characterizations are subject to the dominant force’s opinion. Considering that African American history is largely passed through oral tradition as there is no means to preserve it otherwise, it exists in counterculture to the dominant white history.

Brown must delegitimize history in order for his argument to work. Brown is setting up skepticism of accepted “history” which he uses to further question great documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Without the audience feeling some sense of apprehension towards the “great” documents, Brown’s argument and positioning of them as always being slave-holding documents doesn’t work. He needs the reader to doubt the for-granted nature with which the documents are seen as great. He needs them to question whether these are appropriate guidelines for our country.

Second, I think Brown is skewing chronology so that we are not allowed to think of ourselves as innocent of the sins of the past. By making time indefinite he passes the sin of slavery on to every American whether directly involved or not. If time is not set and stone-like, but rather fluid and mutable then it is easy for his argument to apply to all those who consider themselves citizens of the United States.  His novel becomes an indictment of our tragic past as Americans – one that does not allow its horrors to be forgotten.  A refusal to relegate the problem of slavery as one solved in the past both keeps us aware of our treatment of others and continues to maintain a dialogue about racial difference open.

Resistance

The thing I found most interesting in the latter half of Clotel were the mechanisms by which the abolitionist whites in the novel attempt to resist slavery. Dr. Stockton mentioned in class that we should think of this time period as a point when it was a possibility that poetry could defeat slavery. I think that this idea has even more weight when you consider the other forms of resistance.

One of these forms is seen through Althesa & Henry, who rather than have slaves “hire servants,” which a footnote explains as “the practice of paying slave masters for the use of their slaves” (Pg 146). One has to ask whether this is really a subversive and revolutionary act or merely one that allows Althesa & Henry to defer or displace their moral apprehension onto someone else. In effect a situation that makes them complicit with the slave trade without having to “dirty” their hands in the business. I think this is an important distinction because it highlights the impossibility of living in the southern states at the time without slaves. Despite their abolitionist leanings they are still involved in slavery.

A similar situation is found when Mr. and Mrs. Carlton decide to set up a “system of gradual emancipation…that [the negros] would be allowed a certain sum for every bale of cotton produced… [and] placed to their credit; and when it amounted to a certain sum, they should all be free.” (Pg 162). One must question why the slaves are not given their entire earned wage – to which there is an obvious answer. A large portion of the country at the time, especially the south, depended on slaves for their livelihood – the Carltons eventually go broke because of their plan.

There are of course also examples in the text about the Fugitive Slave laws, and laws against whites helping slaves prove their freedom. I think when taking into account the immense control that slavery had over the entire country’s economic and legal system – it is quite possible that the only means of true resistance lied within writing – that the only way to combat this evil without being complicit within it was to attempt to change minds. That, as silly and romanticized as it sounds,  poetry really was capable of defeating slavery.

First Impression of Clotel

Before opening up my book to begin Clotel, I knew nothing of the text I must admit, I’ve been a bit surprised of what I’ve read. I feel as if we’ve all read so much literature about slavery. I know my Sophomore year of high school we spent an entire quarter (and some of the other quarters) reading books on the subject, and it’s a main focus in almost all of my American lit classes. Not saying we should not read books about slavery, but occasionally some of the texts seem exactly the same.

I’m a bit reluctant to completely judge my opinion of the text so far, since we’ve only read the narrative of William Wells Brown so far. But, from what we have read, it’s much drier than I would have expected. Maybe it’s because we have not been introduced to any characters so far, but it did not seem to have any flourish to it. Once again… at least not so far.

I really enjoyed some of the little stories within the text. I definitely think they were the most powerful. Such as the blind mother whom was ripped away (literally) from her child who was sold for a measly $1. Or about the woman who was also taken from her husband and her children and decided to drown herself in the ocean. These were very powerful stories which were unlike any I had ever heard of before. It’s horrible to think of what it must be like to be torn apart from the people who love you most.

I hope to really benefit from hearing the personal narrative of the author. He truly had an amazing journey himself from slavery to author. It’s inspiring that he went from a simple spelling book to writing the first African-American novel. I also really loved at the end his response to his former slave-owner. That no matter how much money was offered in exchange for his papers, he would never give it to him. With his background and spirit, I look forward to seeing how that may translate into the novel.

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?

Updated calendar

For Monday, please finish Temple House and read Clotel, pp. 44-80.

For Wednesday, please get to p. 155 of Clotel.

I’ll be posting the next assignment by Friday night.  Please post any comments you have from today’s conversation in the interim.  I’m interested in hearing your thoughts about:

• recovering texts
• texts as historical documents
• canonical vs. non-canonical readings
• the uses of technology for classroom
• the ability of technology to bind us together, to sustain or even create some kind of comradeship.

Digital Text Deletion

This is just an article from this summer that keeps coming to mind when we discuss e-texts. I was going to bring it up today but it never really fit in anywhere. It’s about Amazon deleting some copies of 1984 due to some copyright issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Temple House v. Leaves of Grass

I can’t read this text without directly comparing what is going on in the plot with what Whitman wrote in the Calamus poems. Almost in direct contrast to the poems, we find family units that seem to care very little about one another on the one hand, and unrelated individuals in close relationships on the other. Even when Argus goes to bring John’s body back, he comforts Tempe for a brief moment, but soon gets impatient with her. Virginia and Mat Sutcliff seem to care for the Temple House and it’s residents more than anyone in the house does, and Argus was very ready to let any possible survivors of the shipwreck freeze to death. Marriage was seen (by John) as a way to possess Tempe, who, herself, was only in it to satisfy her own greed – she is in no way connected as one would think a married individual might be, and in fact calls it an “experiment” (ch 11). And outside of Temple House, when we see the family dynamics of the Brandes, we find that the Forge is a disconnected (thanks to the mom) and cold (thanks to the dad) place, although, compared to T.H. they are a nuclear family.

I get the feeling, from the start of this novel, that it functions to bring a realistic perspective to Whitman’s ideal of comradery. Yeah, it’s great to think that we would love strangers as we would love a significant other, or that we would naturally find an “adhesive” quality to bind ourselves to one another, but Stoddard seems to be telling us that it isn’t that easy. Whitman’s poetry is hopeful, but her novel reflects the situations of real life, where opinions, emotions, image and selfishness exist.

Poverty and Wealth in Temple House

The further we read in Temple House the more intrigued I am about the subject of class and money, particularly in the case of Virginia’s love for the poverty that surrounds the Temple House. It particularly caught my attention when she is reminiscing about the night she stayed at Temple House after the sailor was rescued. She remembers the sleeping quarters and prefers them to her own house because “freedom was there” (109). There is something in the Temple House atmosphere that she does not get under the roof of her very controlling (and kind of creepy) father. Then, later, when she is talking to her father, she exclaims “Poverty is beautiful!” and his response is, “Yes, to only daughters, whose fathers are rich enough to allow them to contemplate it at a distance as far as Temple House” (114). I thought it was interesting that she called poverty “beautiful” since she once called Roxalana’s dress one of the ugliest she has ever seen. That dress embodies the poverty and freedom that Virginia is so drawn to. This lead me back to an early scene with Tempe, Roxalana, and Argus. Tempe wishes for more wealth and Argus tells her that she can only marry money. It seems that Virginia feels shackled by her wealth and Tempe  by poverty. Both desire the opposite of what they have without truly understanding what it means. Tempe eventually marries into money but is in no way happy. What is Stoddard trying to convey about poverty and wealth in this book? As we discussed before, her narrative is rooted in telling so we are not given an in depth look into why the adult characters are content in their class status but the younger ones are not…

Temple House and Whitman

Sebastian is described as being “in eclipse [because of] an illness” he developed after his shipwreck (Stoddard 127). Stoddard observes that even after Sebastian healed from his illness, “it was certain that his mind was under a cloud” (Stoddard 127). This quote suggests to us that Sebastian isn’t healed in a psychological sense. Something still ails him. Though it was unclear what plagued Sebastian, many assumed that “he was haunted b y some recollection, or occupied with anxiety concerning the future…” (Stoddard 128). Clearly, Sebastian has been severely emotionally impacted by something. It was observed that that “for days he [would] either [sit] like a statue, in marble sadness, or [he would walk] about the house like a somnambulist or an automaton” (Stoddard 128). This description of Sebastian is chilling to me because it suggests to us that he exists, but only to a minimal extent. The use of the phrase “marble sadness” struck as me as particularly poignant because it is hard to comprehend the depths of that type of sadness. Further, the image of Sebastian sitting like a statue reinforces that he is experiencing a sadness that goes beyond typical sadness.

As I read this description of Sebastian’s state, I started to consider what could send a person into a “marble sadness.” I am not sure if I just am fixated on Whitman’s conception of “the love of comrades” because I just wrote about it, but I started thinking about how difficult it is to embrace “the love of comrades” when society isn’t receptive to that type of connection. I often wonder if Whitman was disenchanted by the fact that most individuals weren’t open to the possibilities offered by loving one’s comrades. In other words, I wonder if Whitman ever felt this “marble sadness” because he recognized that people would not fully support his conception of “the love of comrades.” Sorry if this post seems random/off topic. For whatever reason, I just thought about Whitman as I read this particular part of Temple House.

That crazy Whitman guy

So, I was talking about this with Dr. Stockton last week because I wanted to write about it in paper — but then I didn’t get a chance to even begin to fit it in, so I thought I might post a little about it here and see what everyone else thought on the matter.

Going back to Whitman’s poetry, we talked a lot about this notion of “queer citizenship” and what exactly this love between men means, and whether or not his notion of comradeship is only definitively associated with men — but there were a couple things we never really touched on that I thought were incredibly interesting:

1. Dr. Stockton gave us a link a while back that went to a website which gave a bit of history about Whitman’s time serving in hospitals in and around Washington D.C. during the war — and so my question becomes whether or not women might actually find a place in Whitman’s notion of comradeship, because in this case, under these circumstances, the women were his comrades, not the men; Whitman was not a soldier, he was a nurse, and so, if anything, he was essentially playing the role of the woman.

In that sense, can we also perhaps connect this back to the first picture we saw in class between Whitman and Doyle? We talked about this being a sort of marriage picture, and so found that perhaps part of their relationship, even though between men and sternly described as such, could still be based on a rudimentary sense of gender roles.

2. What does it mean that the founding fathers of our nation are all men? In current days we have reached the point where women are voters and soldiers and politicians, etc. — but what does it mean that this piece of history, which can never be changed, which our entire nation is based on, and which we are still, every day, in direct dialogue with, is one that is based on the relationships and bonds of fellowship formed between men? In this way, the government becomes manly territory, yet in one of Whitman’s poems, he expressly refers to Democracy as “ma femme” — he makes it feminine. WHAT?