Study of Intersectionality and Gyno-criticism through the
Slave Narratives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs
Debarshi Ghosh,
Ph.D. Research Scholar,
Techno India University,
Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
Abstract: Slave narratives
form an important testimonial of the black women in America, providing a
counter narrative to the literature propounded by the colonial white masters.
Their portrayal of the natives as uncivilized, barbaric gets rejected
outrightly in the works produced by the former slaves. The texts under
consideration – Sojourner
Truth’s Narrative and Book of Life (1850) by Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
were written at a similar time, during the period of abolition of slavery -
providing the incentive for the waves of feminism that would follow. The two
texts talk of slavery, exploitation and the eventual emancipation of the
slaves. Their narratives become important in order to understand the voice of
the marginalized authors, who were suppressed not only by the white males, but
equally by the white females as well. The stories promulgated by Harriet,
Sojourner bear a struggle for identity, freedom, equality and hence can be
incorporated under the purview of feminism movements. The paper would aim to
analyze the above-mentioned texts through Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of
Intersectionality and Elaine Showalter’s concept of Gyno-criticism to
understand the motives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs regarding the
writing of their life narratives.
Keywords: Intersectionality, Gyno-criticism, Slave narrative,
Feminism
The basis of Slave Narratives
The tradition of Slave Narrative writing started around
1790s, with the publication of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Gradually, with the
uprisings led by Nat Turner, it promoted the writings of the slaves,
documenting their life and their lived experience of exploitations (Andrews).
Boston emerged as an important center for the development
of studies, literature of the slaves. The development of Boston as an
educational and its stance on anti-slavery allowed the development of slave
narratives as a genre, making the readers aware of the distinction between
north and south regarding slavery and the leap of faith the slaves had to take
to make their stories known to all- upholding their generations of abuse,
trauma to the public for their awareness (Pun 13).
These works also address the issues of mistrust between
the white and the black women. The black women also had to face repulsive
action from their white counterparts, making them doubly marginalized (Suresh
517). Hence, through their narratives, the women slaves try to create a
reconciliation between these two groups, pointing out the hypocrisy of the
white men, making their female counterparts believe in the illusion of power
equations but at the same time did not provide them a voice for their own as
well. The slave narratives like that of Harriet and Sojourner attempt to make
the white women realize their follies, the discrimination that they have
carried out over them in order to have a power position in imitation of their
male counterparts.
The repositories like National Library of Congress and
other projects like The Federal Writers Project (1936-38) play a key role in
bringing about the stories of the repressed slaves to the public. The slave
narratives under the consideration of this work also forms a part of the
above-mentioned repositories, and such collectives allow others to access their
stories and make an attempt to unlearn all prior colonial preachings regarding
natives.
Their narratives are fraught with challenges – they are
writing against the established notions and traditions. They are going against
the existing literature promoted by the people in power. It became the
responsibility of the former slaves to justify their experiences at the hands
of the white masters through their stories. Their works have references to the
legal proceedings, historical events be it the law banning the sale of slaves
in Sojourner’s narrative or the laws regarding slave ownership in Harriet’s
work.
There is certain bone of contention regarding the
authenticity of their stories to a certain extent. In the case of Sojourner,
her narrative can be considered as a conversation as she narrated her story to
a person belonging from the white community in order to be written down as a
text. This might raise questions regarding the contents of her book, with
points being possibly raised regarding her experiences getting overwritten by
the prejudice of the white writer. Sojourner’s oral narration was mostly
retained by the writer and cited certain instances that would legitimize the
claims of Sojourner (Inniss 1645).
Regarding the work of Harriet Jacobs, she has written the
book by herself, signifying her level of literacy. However, on certain
occasions, she has maintained fictionality of characters in order to safeguard
the interests of her community (Cutter 210). However, what she has represented
under the garb of fictionality can be considered as her own story – on account
of the presentation of events, legal issues and the personal touch which is
present in the narrative.
The research paper would involve an analysis of the slave
narrative using the texts under consideration with the help of theories of
Elaine Showalter and Kimberle Crenshaw.
The reading of the life narratives through theoretical
lens
Elaine Showalter’s concept of Gyno-criticism talks about
the importance of women coming up with their own literature, views in order to
counter the narratives provided by the patriarchal society regarding them.
She felt that the development of Gyno-criticism was
necessary to reduce male prejudice over the experiences, choices of the woman.
She discusses about it in her essay Towards A Feminist Poetics (1979), where
she raises the apprehensions of men of belittling the experiences of the
female, placing their sense of apprehension upon it (Showalter). Thus, the two
texts under consideration can be taken up as examples of Gyno-criticism.
Also, Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality
becomes important as well to address the issue of double marginalization. There
involves a complete dehumanization of Black Women- they are seen as effeminate
and they get sandwiched between the twin issues of gender and race. They face
repression not only for their gender, but also for the colour of their skin and
their voice fails to reach the center of power (Crenshaw 1244).
These two concepts are critical to understand the motives
of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs regarding the writing of their life
narratives.
The first book under consideration, Narrative of Life
of Sojourner Truth, documents the life of Sojourner – from her childhood
till her adulthood. She is writing about the exploitation she faced at the
hands of the white colonial masters, who treated them with disdain and in this
process expressed their hypocrisy.
The first process of dehumanization in the book starts
with the selling of Sojourner and her family at the auction table. They were
seen similar to that of a commodity, neglecting their humane side and dignity.
She got separated from her family. Her parents were old and diseased and their
masters left them alone, not allowing their children, even Sojourner to look
after them. The older slaves like her parents were made to believe in the
illusion that the masters were freeing them from bondage – it was nothing more
than irony since freedom meant nothing to them at that stage of their life,
especially when they needed their masters the most for economic support. By
this way, the masters actually got rid of slaves in order to reduce costs. Such
is the hypocrisy of the Whites.
The Whites claimed control over the natives to civilize
them, but in reality, they exploited them for their needs. The major brunt of
the same was born by the black females. The main way of exerting control over
them was through their bodies (Inniss 1652). Black females were sexually
exploited by the whites – for producing offsprings in order to increase the
labour forces working for them.
The masters often used the black men slaves for this
purpose. They got the black female to get married to those men selected by the
masters for this purpose, against their will. This can be related to
intersectionality, as the voice of the black female gets subdued under the
oppressive activities of both the white master and the fellow black men (Inniss
1650).
This happened to Sojourner as well. She loved another
slave, but it was neither liked by her master or the owner of that man as well.
They considered them as their properties, hence in order to maintain their
authority over them, they prevented this alliance. Her lover was physically
abused to such an extent that he had to end their relationship and the extent
of violence can be understood from this line, “…mangling his head and face in
the most awful manner, and causing the blood, which streamed from his wounds,
to cover him like a slaughtered beast...” (Truth 35). Mr. Dumont, Sojourner’s
master got her forcibly married to another old slave of his. The marriage also
had no legal sanctity as it could be annulled by the master as per his whims.
Sojourner was left with no right over her own body and
neither she possessed any marital rights. Even her children were sold away from
her and were denied her right to freedom post the annulment of the slavery law
by Dumont.
Sojourner also had her run-ins with the white womenfolk
as well. During her period of stay at the house of one of his masters, the
female white servants tried to put her in difficult situations, like messing up
with the food prepared by her, in order to make her feel helpless in front of
her master (Truth 24). Also, the white servants would receive privileged from
their master by this act and salvage a power position against the helpless
black female.
She also faced violence – both physiological and
psychological at the hands of her masters, be it the sexual oppression or
physical abuse, through the form of beatings that she received at the hands of
her respective masters as expressed in this line, “When he had tied her hands
together before her, he gave her the most cruel whipping she was ever tortured
with” (Truth 22).
The desire of standing up for self-came up to her one
day, as she finally decided to make her escape from Mr. Dumont’s house. The
slave narratives do have a breaking point for the protagonists. For Sojourner,
the action of escape was her breaking point. She
refrained from subjugating herself to the whims of her master any longer.
This juncture in the novel is key in order to show the
development in her character – she could finally show the audacity to challenge
the authority into leading a life of her choice. Her narrative also revealed
that amidst the abusers, some white people were there who felt sympathy for the
victims and extended their support in various ways. She received help from the
Wagner family, who provided her shelter and her eventual emancipation from her
master.
This phase was also important for her, as she got the
courage to take on the world by her own – as revealed in the episode where she
set out for New York to retrieve her son, who was sold off illegally by Dumont.
Sojourner had now gained courage to face all the challenges of life and was not
afraid of the white masters anymore. She successfully got her son released and
got united with him (Truth 44).
The narrative also gives instances of community bonding.
The idea of religion becomes important as god became the fulcrum of connecting
the members of black community with
each other. God became the idea that gave them hope and shelter from the harsh
treatment that they received outside (Inniss 1656). Sojourner was taught by her
mother to have firm belief on God as the almighty would help her out of her
crisis and she passed of this knowledge to her own children as well.
Religion allowed Sojourner to develop her own personality
and allowed her to express herself freely (Truth 70). Through her religious
interactions with God, she understood the purpose of life and ended up spending
rest of her life in preaching religious ideas and equality, brotherhood among
people in order to have an egalitarian society.
Thus, through a gyno-criticism based analysis of her
writing, it can be understood that she tried to make people aware of the
reality of slavery and how she eventually gained her emancipation – through
defiance of social order and emphasis on religion, which helped her to start
her life in a new way.
Similar reading can be done of Harriet Jacobs’ life
narrative as well. She was born of black parents. Their master was benevolent
and we see instances of the same in her book, Incidents in the Life of a
Slave Girl. She used fictional names in her narrative in order to describe
her own experiences under the garb of false identity.
With the frequent change of hands of ownership, life
became troublesome for Harriet as well as her family. Dr Flint became their new
owner and he along with his wife carried out numerous oppressive measures
against them. His brother was also on the receiving end. He once got thrashed
brutally for challenging his master. Dr Flint was a cunning person and had
bought Harriet and her family under the ownership of his underage daughter
(Jacobs 17).
This became a major thorn later on in emancipation
attempts of Harriet, as freeing her required the consent of his daughter, who
was merely a child, of same age as that of Harriet. Through the narrative of
Harriet Jacobs, the jealousy, oppressive practices of the white woman came in
front, which was represented by the character of Mrs. Flint in the narrative.
She did not sympathize with the pains, suffering of the black women slaves at
all. Instead, she carried out further oppression against them, as highlighted
in this instance:
If
dinner was not served at the exact time on that particular Sunday, she would
station herself in the kitchen, and wait till it was dished, and then spit in
all the kettles and pans that had been used for cooking. She did this to
prevent the cook and her children from eking out their meagre fare with the
remains of the gravy and other scrapings (Jacobs 22).
She was quite critical of Harriet, primarily because of
her husband’s advances towards her. Dr Flint tried to corrupt the mind of a
young Harriet with his lustful talks. He wished to have her as his sexual
partner and hereby, refused to share her with someone else.
He denied the permission to Harriet to have a partner of
her choice, preventing her to have a life of her own. Dr Flint wanted her to
make his concubine with no rights of her own (Cutter 215). She describes about
the other workers in her neighbourhood, as to how they faced some of the
harshest punishments from their masters. For instance, she saw one farm worker
receiving a brutal thrashing from his masters (Jacobs 23). She gave a gory
description of the same, which would make the readers feel uncomfortable.
It became increasingly difficult for her to secure her
freedom from the sexual urges of Dr. Flint and hence opted to have an
intercourse with a free man and she became pregnant eventually with a free man
in order to have a progeny of her own. This allowed her to gain an upper hand
over her white master to some extent. Also, Dr Flint had cheated her
grandmother of her savings and her freedom, reflecting the hypocrisy practiced
by the white men.
She was transported to the guesthouse of the master later
on as a retribution for her act. She was made to suffer there as well. She was
made to sleep on the floor of Mrs. Flint’s room amidst cold weather and was
given bare minimum rations for her survival. She constantly lived under the
threat of the actions of Dr Flint.
Through her narrative, the readers also get to see her
distrust on God, which is the opposite to the views held by Sojourner regarding
religion. Rather than keeping her faith on the almighty, she questioned as to
why was God letting her suffer (Jacobs 24). She refrained from depending on God
as her safety valve, in order to keep her sanity.
The major turning point comes up when she got to know of
Dr Flint’s plan of bringing in her children in the farmhouse. She realized that
they would soon turn her children into miserable slaves like her and she would
not get legal assistance as it would be skewed in favour of the whites. Hence,
she decided to escape from his house as a fugitive in order to shift to North,
build up a place of residence and bring back her family over there to lead
their lives as a free citizen.
But it was not easy to escape to the North at the first
instance. She had to stay in hiding in various places, under uncomfortable
situations for 8 years, with the threat of getting caught looming around her.
She had spent 8 years in a concealed environment in her grandmother’s house and
the difficulty of the situation can be understood from the following lines:
It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped
position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet I would have chosen
this, rather than my lot as a slave, though white people considered it an easy
one; and it was so compared with the fate of others (Jacobs 174).
She was quite close to her babies, but she could not
contact them in order to maintain their safety. This period of passage in her
book showed the mental strength and community feeling of the black community.
Not only Harriet, but her other relatives, friends took
on immense risks to safeguard her from getting captured by Flint. Even her
children showed immense maturity and handled Dr Flint carefully, even though he
tried to torture them at times to extract confession out of them. Harriet too
showed her resilience and wit. She not only made Dr Flint believe that she was
in New York, but in reality, she was nearby his house only. Her grandmother too
played a key role in Harriet’s quest for emancipation. She held her ground
firmly.
Harriet braved all difficulties, ill health to survive in
her hiding spot for 8 long years. She eventually got the opportunity to go to
New York in order to lead a dignified life of her own.
Her stay in New York allowed her to work as governess in
order to have a stable future for her as well as her children. She did not
receive much support from the father of her children as he failed to fulfill
his promises of providing quality education to his daughter (Jacobs 253). She
took up the responsibility on her own hands to secure the future of her kids as
well as of her own self (Cutter 218). At this juncture, she received help from
an unlikely source – her white employer Mrs. Bruce who helped her to reorganize
her life and also emancipated her from the torturous previous master of her.
She eventually helped her to gain freedom as well, allowing her to start her
life afresh, without the presence of a man in her family.
Thus, these two texts inform the readers about the
struggles of the slaves and the journey they had to undertake in order to seek
emancipation from bondage and exploitations. The use of theoretical tools
reveals how Sojourner and Harriet’s voice got subdued due to the interplay of
issues of race and gender and how it became important for them to write about
their own experiences to the public – it served the purpose of clearing
misconceptions and allowing them to have an identity of their own.
Conclusion
The paper involved discussions on Slave Narratives. Its
evolution was traced back to the publication of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography
and the subsequent political upheavals, connected with the growth of
educational institutions around Boston region led to the development of Slave
Narratives as a literary canon. This field of literature provided a counter
narrative to the ones promulgated by the imperial groups about the natives and
slave narratives go a long way in challenging the power discourses.
The life narratives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs
was analyzed through the lens of intersectionality and Gyno-criticism, which
brings forth the fact that their identities got suspended under racial and
gender-based issues.
The masters of Sojourner and Harriet used their powers to
exploit, harass them in order to keep them under their control – the use of the
body became a tool for this cause. The white women too played their parts to
suppress the voice of the black women and create a power discourse for their
own motivations. These twin factors made them “doubly marginalized”. They
themselves took the initiative for “recovery of the voice” through their
actions and their moments of defiance and putting the same in words in their
life narratives. Their works provide deep insight into culture, ideology of the
natives and the skewed relations of power between these two groups of race and
origin. Their works act as Gyno-criticism containing their opinions,
experiences, emancipation and by this process they revealed the truth to the
society regarding their community and sort of tried to forge a bond between the
black and the white women, who were also living under an illusion of power and
authority. The works might be contentious regarding the way they have been
written down – by another writer and use of fictional names respectively by
Sojourner and Harriet with an involvement of recollection by memory, but they
have tried to justify the same to allusion to various real-life events at that
point of time and it effectively legitimizes their claims and concerns.
Works Cited
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