Memory As ‘Her-Story’:
Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose
Anwesha Mandal
Assistant
Professor
Muralidhar Girls’ College
Kolkata, West
Bengal, India
Abstract:
History
is always the
story or narrative
narrated from the
side of oppressor
or the colonizer.
Historiography is rather
a place of
struggle and hardships
of Afro-American women
and indeed this
is the case
in Dessa Rose. This essay
goes on to
argue that history
books are a poor place
to search for
the history of
slave resistance, especially
the narrative of
female slave resistors.
The history representing
the voices of
these black women has
ignored or misrepresented their
writing. Therefore, by
employing a constituted
memory Sherley Anne
Williams has attempted
to re-constitute ’her-story’ in Dessa
Rose. This paper
further explores that
how Sherley freely
writes that ‘other’
history as a
challenge to the
one composed by
Adam Nehemiah, the
white male author.
Key words: History, Memory, Black Women, Resistance
History
or historical account
always gives credence
to the ruling
class. Thus, history
is always the
master narrative and
dominant culture that
tells about itself.
The historical narrative
effaces as many
contradictions as it can,
creating heroes and
villains convenient to it. Cheryl
Townsend Gilkes once
commented that “history
books are a poor
place to look
for history” , adding
that history books
are “an even
poorer place to
search for African-American history
and African-American women’s
history” (“The Politics
of ‘Silence’,” 107.)
Women’s history must be a history of struggle
and resistance. Davis in her provocative
essay “Reflections on the Black
Woman’s Role in
the Community of
Slaves” argues “A
great deal has
been said about the
black man and
resistance, but very
little about unique
relationship black women
bore to the
resistance struggles during
slavery.”(4) Most of the
female slaves have
remained unsung, unheard
and unnamed in
the history of
slavery. And “To
understand the part
she played in
developing and sharpening the
thrust towards freedom,
the broader meaning
of slavery and
of American slavery
must be explored.”(4)
Ashraf Rushdy observes
that many American
intellectuals and authors
have failed either
to define slavery
or understand the
ramifications of it
only by making
mere analogies or
metaphors. Thus, clearly there is
a dire need for more critical
discourse.
Despite
the agonizing reality
of slavery and
being displaced in
the New World
after being sold
in Africa, many
blacks continued to
voice their injustices
and desired freedom
by writing the
stories of their
experiences in foreign
land. Harriet Jacob’s
Incidents in
the Life of
a Slave Girl in 1861,
Harriet E. Wilson’s novel Our
Nig in 1859,
are few examples
that have been
published in African
American writing. Many
other enslaved experiences
have been published
in American writing
as well. Because
the history and
society have always
belittled the creativity
and humanity of
the black women,
they themselves contributed
to the cause
of abolition of
slavery and exposed
all the horrors
in slavery by
inscribing their experiences.
They have transformed
all these experiences
into a complete
literary form- slave
narrative. Thus, here
memory becomes a tool
for inscribing history
from their perspective.
The evils of
slavery , white master’s
sexual exploitation of
black women and
honest revelation of
black women’s destroyed
lives are the
themes of their
works.
Dessa Rose is one
such brilliant novel
by Sherley Anne
Williams that takes
the form of
an original slave
narrative. This novel is
an example of
how black women
writers creates historical reality
by employing constructed
memory. Williams rewrites
the history by
incorporating the excluded images of
the black women
and their lives. As
Mae Henderson mentions,
others have sought
to “inscribe, or
write, and ascribe
to , or
read” black women’s
experiences because of
absence of black
women’s voices.(“Speaking in
Tongues”24). These black
women’s voices were
suppressed by the
masculine power and
discourse. So silence
was the consequence
of others’ oppression
and not because “black women ,
in past, have
had nothing to
say, but rather
that they have
had no say”(24).
Williams is one
such black woman
writer who breaks
their silence and
recreates their history
by writing in
the language of
these black female
slaves. In Dessa
Rose, Williams recreate or
reclaims the history
of Dessa’s life
by recording her
experiences in her own
language. Thus, memory
is the main
tool for Dessa
for inscribing her
history.
Mary
Kemp Davis writes,
“Dessa Rose
is a stinging
rebuke to historians
and other commentators
who have either
failed to note
or to name
female slave resistor.”(“Everybody Knows
Her Name: The
Recovery of the
Past in Sherley
Anne Williams’Dessa
Rose”545) . And
Williams felt the urgency to
write about these
black women because,
she asserts “But
nowhere did I
find stories of
these heroic young
women who despite
all they had to
do and
endure laughed and
loved, hoped and
encouraged, supported each other
with gifts of
food and money
and fought the
country that was
quite literally , we
were convinced trying
to kill us.”
(‘A Preface to
“Meditations on History”’ 4).
Black women were
enslaved and often
stereotyped as genderless
human beings by
the patriarchal white
males. Williams also
acknowledges the seminal
influence of Angela
Davis’ article, “Reflections
on the Black
Woman’s Role”, in
which Davis attempts
to debunk the
myth of matriarchate
by examining the
female slave’s active
resistance towards slavery.
Davis feels that
revisiting this history
is necessary because
“Lingering beneath the
notion of the
black matriarchate is
an unspoken indictment
of our female
forbears as having
actively assented to
slavery.”(4) She rehabilitates
the image of
the female slave,
thereby facilitating Williams’
efforts “to apprehend
that other history”
(Williams 6).
Dessa’s
memory functions on
two planes: first,
it helps to
recall her past
experiences. Second, it
works as a
counter narrative to
a white discourse
generated by Adam
Nehemiah. Insisting on
the validity of
her own experiences,
Dessa resists and
rewrites the Master
Narrative of antebellum
slavery as represented
by Adam Nehemiah.
Dessa Rose is a
historical novel and
Dessa’s oral statements
show many aspects
of black history.
Her story is
about her life
experiences and resistances
to the institution
that dehumanizes her.
The oral account
recounted from her
memory wins over
the written discourse
of Adam Nehemiah
who represents the
white ideology and
power. Adam nehemiah,
the author of The
Master’s Complete Guide
to Dealing with
Slaves and other
Dependents and the
uncompleted The Roots of
Rebellion in the
Slave Population and
Some Means of
Eradicating Them, functions
as the scribe
of antebellum culture.
Nehemiah takes upon
himself the writing
of Dessa’s history
and attempts to
contain her meaning
within the language
of slavery:
These are the
facts of the
darky’s history as
I have thus
far uncovered them: The master
smashed the young
banjo. The young
buck attacked the
master. The master killed the young buck. The darky attacked the
master- and was
sold to The
Wilson slave coffle.” (39)
Nehemiah
grounded everything he
writes about Dessa
in facts, he
is after all
a man of
“Science. Research.”
The
prologue of the
novel starts with
Dessa’s reminiscence about
Kaine and their
relationship. She recalls her
love for him
and the time
that they had
spent together. It is important
to note that
why Williams began
the narrative with a prologue.
Williams is able
to articulate the
passionate emotions of
Dessa through the
voice of the
slave herself. Dessa’s
relationship with Kaine
is written in
the prologue in
the form of a
dream. The prologue
that is written
in italics is
based on her
memory. We, as
readers are very
eager to hear
her story, her
dream recounted from
her memory. Dessa
and Kaine were
enjoying each other’s
company after a
backbreaking day. “A touch
was all we had
…….Touch ain’t never
just satisfied me.”(13)
When Dessa wanted
to cleanse her
body because of
the sweat and
dust after a
whole day’s work
Kaine dismissed her
spiel and expressed
his love for
her- “You ain’t dirty….Ain’t
no wine they
got up to
the House good
as this- Ain’t
no way I’m
ever going let
you get away
from me, girl.
Where else I
going to find
eyes like this?” (4). In
stark contrast to
Kaine’s perception of
Dessa’s beauty, Nehemiah,
the white male
historian displays his
arrogant attitude towards
her. In one
of the initial
meetings with Dessa,
he requested the
sheriff to shift
the place of
meeting with Dessa,
because according to
him to stay
with Dessa in
a small cellar
room would be
an “unsettling” experience.
“He sniffed gingerly
at his sleeve
now, but could
detect no telltale odor.
Being closeted with
the darky within
the small confines
of the cellar
was an unsettling
experience.”(16) The narrative
has begun with
Dessa and white
historian, Adam Nehemiah’s
scribing of his
account in his
language and interpretations; the
two narratives thus
are juxtaposed here.
Williams
purposefully portrays the
differences of perspective
between white and
black characters in
terms of racial
and gendered understanding
of the black’s
condition of life
and humanity. Adam
Nehemiah is racially
prejudiced person and
he is not
at all concerned
with lives and
experiences of black
slaves. By contrasting
these two different
perspectives on the
same person, Dessa,
a black slave
woman, one from
white male perspective
and the other
black man’s perspective,
Williams critiques the
racist view of
white class and
also the history
written from that
perspective. In this
section, Dessa’s memory
and recollection of her past
experiences appear
in italicized letters.
However, this italicized
portion is being
smoothly interwoven into
the main narrative.
In many parts,
Nehemiah tries to
appropriates Dessa’s memory
and records her
past in actual history
writing:it is being
written down in
his journal as
a history of
Dessa’s past and
it is also
written down by
Williams as history
for readers like
us. The former
is problematic, because
Nehemiah distorts the fact
for his own purpose only.
The interesting fact
that has been
brought by Marta
Sanchez is that
the unique method
of italicization has
made Dessa’s voice
more prominent to us:
Just as
words in a “foreign” language
are conventionally underlined
to underscore their
“foreignness” their difference
from the norm
in a particualar
context, so the
task of the
italics in this
novel is to
buttress the uniqueness
of Dessa’s “ voice”, its
inassimilableness into the
cultural norms of
the larger society.
(34)
According
to Sanchez, Dessa’s
vernacular language, especially
the italicized portion
marked by its
conspicuos difference from
the standard English .
She asserts that
“[Dessa] dismantles the
split between the
‘white’ written text
and the ‘black’
speaking voice, thus
making the ‘white’
text speak with
a ‘black’ voice”
(34)
Just
as the plot
of the novel
carries Dessa from
slavery to freedom
and depicts that
Dessa and others
have sacrificed to
“own” themselves(267). While
ostensibly a fight
for survival, Dessa’s
power struggle can
also be viewed
as a quest
for identity and
self awareness. She
struggles to achieve
and maintain her
identity, retain her
dignity , recover her racial
history. The novel shows
that Dessa is
tenaciously clinging to
her true name.
Dessa is only
referred to by
her full name- Odessa- by
“the white folk”(64).
Naming and identity
are intimately connected,
and it is
no coincidence that
whites like Adam
Nehemiah attempts to
possess Dessa via
the power of
name control. Adding
an “O” to
her name is nothing but
to attempt at
negation. “O” dessa
is a no
Dessa. By the
third chapter, Dessa
can say confidently,
“I chooses me
Dessa” (75)1. Naming is
a form of
marking that can
be both limiting
and empowering- a
form of identity
branding and Nehemiah
by renaming her
tries to confer
an identity upon
her. This form
of naming and
identity branding can
actually counteract the
physical and psychological
markings of an
agent of oppression
and Dessa is
the subject of oppression. Naming
can be seen
as a form
of self inscription,
i.e., something we
positively make use
of to define
ourselves. Upon Dessa,
Nehemiah confers a
series of demeaning
epithets: “ ‘Girl’” (45), “ ‘gal’” (227), “ ‘darky’”, (232),
“ ‘ a dangerous animal’” (220), and
a “ ‘ Sly bitch’” (71).
More significantly ,
he wants to
rename her in the
book he is
writing The Roots of
The Rebellion in
The Slave Population
and The Means
of Eradicating Them. Before Dessa
escapes from the
cellar at sheriff’s
home she cunningly
resists Nehemiah by
giving a straight-forward account
of insurrection of
coffle. Nevertheless, when
Adam Nehemiah finally
recaptures Dessa near
the end of
the novel, he
claims that he “ knows” Dessa (226,236). He
does recognize her,
but by no
stretch of imagination
he “know” her.
What he knows
or what he
does is just
a grotesque stereotyping:
“the blackness of the darky
heart. Sing and laugh,
and all the
time plotting.” (227) Dessa
recoils from this
reduction to a
one-dimensional type because
she perceives that
Nehemiah means that
she is “something
terrible”, that she
is not “even human”.(227)
Besides, she utters,
“Why he didn’t
even..know how to
call my name-talking
about Odessa” (225). Davis
suggests that “Specifically, the
play on names
and naming is
a unifying trope
for several interrelated
activities in the
novel”. For instance,
“Mammy” is also not
a name but
it triggers a
pivotal act of
psychic recovery and genealogical
recollection in the
text.
The
section “The Wench”
dramatizes a debate
between Dessa and Rufel, in
which they have
a verbal contest
over the concept
of mammy, identity,
memory, and empowerment.
The debate of
“Mammy” over memory
between Dessa and
Rufel is very
significant in the
novel. The verbal contest
between Dessa and
Rufel occurs because
of their difference
in the understanding
of the notion
of mammy. The
different conceptions of
Mammy point toward
a language barrier
wherein Dessa cannot
comprehend that there
is another mammy
for Rufel. For
Dessa, the mammy
is her mother
and for Rufel
Mammy is that
slave woman. The
nature of the
contest does not
lie on the
fact that they
are mistakenly talking
about a different
person. The point
that Dessa makes
is that whether
Rufel really knows
her Mammy. She
argues, that Rufel
does not love
her Mammy for
she cannot say
how many children
Mammy had, what
was her name
or the kind
of life that
she lived. By offering the
contrasting figure of
Dessa who remembers
the names of
her siblings, Williams
highlights that Dessa’s
memory is vivid
and powerful: “
Mammy gave birth
to ten chi’dren
tha come in the world
living… The first one
Rose after herself;
the second one
died before the
white folks named
it. Mammy called
her Minta after
a cousin she
met once. Seth
was the first
child lived to
go into the
fields. Little Rose
died while mammy
was carrying Amos”-
(162). However, the
significance lies not
in who remembers
her mammy in a
better and precise
way. Dessa’s memory
of her mammy
is picture-like, whereas
Rufel’s is a
tenuous one . Dessa
portrays the details
of her mother’s
life as if
Williams wanted to
show the agony
of the ancestral
black female lives
under the enslavement. Rufel
also loved her
Mammy but she
has not thought
of her as
woman who can
have a family
and life outside
of the roof
of the big
house but as an image
that can be
brought whenever she
is required to
her. Here, Williams reverses
the role play
of white woman.
It is true,
as Deborah Mc.Dowell
observes, that the chance
to talk about
mammy renders their
relationship close : “Though
the confrontation between
Rufel and Dessa
over “Mammy” is
painful to them
both, it puts
each in touch
with the buried
aspects of her
past and initiates
the the process of
intimacy and trust”
(Negotiating between Tenses”152).
It is a
story of sisterhood .
Dessa’s relationship with
Rufel allows her
to overcome her
notion and sentiments
of white woman that
“white woman was
everything I feared
and hated”(180). As
a woman, both
Rufel and Dessa
get connected and
build a strong
bond of friendship
through the memory
of mammy. The
remembering of the
past of mammy
actually help both
these women to
retain her identity.
Williams
deliberately reinforces this
communal bond between
a white woman
and a black
woman . The bond
actually becomes weapon
to counteract the
oppressive ideology of
Adam Nehemiah, who
by this novel’s
end is reduced
to claimimg that
the women -
white and black-
are “all in
this
together….womanhood….All
alike. Sluts.(605) . One
of the ways
of disrupting the
dominant history is
through the inversion
of racial roles
and she does
more than suggest
history is a
complex discipline worthy
of re-analysis. She
rather asserts the
absolute cultural and
therapeutic significance of
re-telling stories ,
so that the
characters resist the editorial manipulation
and remain in the domain
of the storyteller
and gets elevated.
Nehemiah is certainly
a parody of
responsible historian. For
McDowell, “Nehemiah’s ‘authority’
as an agent
of white male
law and rationality
is aggressively undermined
by text. His
section is a
veritable parody of
the “as-told-to’ device
of gathering empirical
evidence and documenting
events to construct
the historical discourse” (148).
If
the tale is
reduced to a
mere contested narrative
then Dessa’s voice
wins; her voice
resonates as a
dominant one and
Nehemiah appears in the end
more as a foolish
historian than in
the beginning. However, William’s
wanted to convey
something more than
Dessa’s victory; she
wanted to destabilize
the notion of
writing ‘history’. Dessa
in the epilogue
mentions “This is
why I have
it wrote down,
why I has
the child say
it back. I
never will forget
Nemi trying to
read me ,
knowing I had
put myself in his hands.
Well, this the
children have to
heard from our
own lips.” (260). Williams
wants us to
remember the story
not taken out
of that dominant
discourse-history. She reminds
us stories are
often being communicated
through the major
discourse , but
still the omissions
of the stories
can be retold.
Elizabeth
Beaulieu has mentioned “
Williams’ direct challenge
of a white
male author is not the
only way in
which she sets
out to revise
history, however. Dessa Rose is an
important twentieth-century American
novel for the
ways in which
it calls attention
to how black
stories are entered into
the historical record,
but it is
equally important for
its contribution of
an enslaved female
voice to that
record” (30). Williams not
only incorporates the
notions of a
nineteenth century novel,
but she also
re-writes history from
a woman’s point
of view and
therefore, makes it
‘her-story.’ Besides, in
keeping the tradition
of black woman
writer depicting black
woman’s lives and
their experiences, resisting
patriarchal ideology and
the horrendous dehumanizing
institution of slavery,
Williams has inscribed
a resistant neo-slave
narrative as female
black poet and
a novelist who
is also a
historian.
Works Cited
Primary
Source
Williams,
Sherley Anne. Dessa Rose .
New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.
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