Strategies of empowerment: two narratives by African American women

Re1 •is ta de Estudios Norteamericanos, n.º 7 (2000), pp. 115 -123 STRATEGIES OF EMPOWERMENT: 1 TWO NARRATIVES BY AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN IS ABEL SOTO Un ive rsidad Autónoma de Madrid The thesis of this essay is th at for pre-civ il righls Amer ican women authors of African deseen! empow erment wa s not simply a soc ial iss ue taking the form of m anumissio n or emancipation. The strugg le for empowerme nt engaged m any strategies, not least that of establishing a literary voice where traditionally only male voices - mostly white, but s ome black-had been heard. Scparated though they are by n carly 80 yea rs and the historical co nv ulsions of the Ameri ca n Civil War , Reconstruction and the Great War, the two texts 1 h ave chosen -lncidents i11 the Lij e of a Slave Girl (1861) and Their Eyes Were Wat ch inx God (1937) (hereaftcr rcferred to as lnc id e 11ts a nd Eyes) -confro nt and attempt to resol ve ccrtain givens which informcd the authors' con di tion and status as African American women writers. First among thcse, as 1 have indi ca ted, involved establishing a nairntive registcr, a task which required contesting «a literary history and system of conventions shaped p ri ma ri ly by men.»2 In what follows 1 will explore ho w African Amer ican women aut ho rs s imultancously s ubv e rted and reconverted f rom a v er y early stage the ovcrwhe lmingly whit e male literary and gen der traditions by whi ch th ey were constrained. Haz el Carby has convincingly argucd how l ncident.1· challenged such discourses as the 19th century domestic novel and the female paradigm cnslu·ined in thc «cult of true w om anhood.» Along the way it also proposed altematives to such J. Th is tille was suggcs ted by Mary Hclcn Wash ington's idcntification of the work uf Zora Nca lc Hur slon a nd Gwcndo l yn Bu oks as « narrative stratcgics whosc major concern is thc cmpowem1cnt of wu me n» (xxv). bil'ellted Lives: Narratives of Black ntm1en. 1850-1960. Lun<lon: Vi ra go Prcss, 1989. 2. Maryellen Bicdcr. « Pl otting Against thc Rcader. Stratcgics of Suhvcrsion in Strnies hy Emilia Pardo B azá n.» flldiww Journal ofHispwlic Ut eratures. 2: 1 (Fa ll 1 993): 17'7. 116 Isabel Soto black canonical forms as the slave narrative. in which the female voice, as has been variously pointed out. is scarce.3 It is as wcll to reca ll here the enormous significance literacy has in the African Ameri can exp e rience as a means by which to overcome var ious m odes of enslavement, institutional and intcr-personal. According to Henry Louis Gat es, Jr., slave narrators equated «the mastery of slavery» with «the 'si mp le'mastery of letters. Their dream of freedom lwas] figured in tropes of writing» (Signifying 167).4 He adds later: «the concem to depict the quest of the black speaking subject to fi nd b is or her voice has heen a repeated topos of the black tradition. and perhaps its most centra l trope» (239). lt is this 'central trope 'of empowerment through freedom, and freedom through verbal self-expression that this essay is chielly concemed with. Literary and gender shibboleths, however, were not confined to wh it e male discourse. Black women writers faced a dual challenge: t hat of creating a voice which not only narrated their individual experience within white American society, but also and simply the experience of Lhe African American woman. The latter involved, as we shall see, a process of social and literary re-definition of self which subverted litera ry and gender codes of the sort mentioned above - bu t in a cullural battlefield much nearer home. Gender subordination was an unfortunate fact of the black woman' s life within her own community a~ well. This essay, Lhen , will discuss ways in which African American women cre a ted an alternative and dissenting system of Iiterary and gender conventions by first assuming, then subverting, and ultimately reconverting paradigms which were shaped by the white and black male status quo. The cult of true womanhood has been amply discussed by feminist scholars in recent years. It was one of thc cultural buttresses of the ascendancy of white society. many of whose members we re d epe ndant on the economic system of slavery as it existed in antebellum America. The supreme defining characteristic of the master class was, as has been pointed out by Catherine Clinton, racial purity.:i This emblematic dis li nct ion, brutally enforced by the notorious «One drop rn le»6 was, needless to say. identifiable by means of skin colour -w hite skin colour. Hazel Carby states that the «physical. externa!» attributes of the white woman were furthermore «evidencc of the presence of a purc soul» (26). Quoting feminist historian Barbara Welter, we read that «Piety, pu ri t y, submissivencss and domesticity» defined th e moral boundaries for white women from the 1820s to the Civil War (23). Conspicuously but unfailingly absent from this chilling list was sexualily. 3. «Black women wrotc aboul 'I 2 per ce nl of thc total numbcr of extant slavc narrativcs.» Washington 7. 4. The SiKniffing Monkey. Oxford: Oxford Univcrsily Press, 1988. 5. Quoted by Hazel V. Carby. ReconstructinK Womanhood. The Em ergence of the Afro - Amerirnn Woman Novelist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. 24. 6. « ... what <loes it mean if in one body the black blood and thc white bl oo d are inextricably mixed? For a hundred years dominant Southern whites had solvcd lhat problem quickly by ernbracing the 'onc drop rule,' that is, one drop of black blood makes a pcrson al i black ... » Jocl Williamson. William Faulkner and Southem History. Oxford: Oxford Univcrsity Press, 1993, 270. Strate¡:ies of Empowerment: Two Narratives bv African American Women 11 7 The cult of true womanhood established, according to Carby, a «dominating image, describing the parameters within which women were .. . declared to be, or not to be, women» (23). In the case of black women, then, the colour of one's complexion was more than a skin-decp issue. Lacking as they did fair skin, «fair hair and celestial blue eyes,» (26) they could not possess a 'pure soul'and hence lay beyond the pale of true womanhood. «The idea of modcsty and virtue in a Louisiana colored-girl might well be ridiculed; as a general thing, she has neither,» pontificated a white male preemancipation writer (26). Non-whitc women not only suffered a lack of 'true' womanly virtues; they were also considered lhe repository of ali those qualities or aspects proscribed by the cult of true womanhood, chief among them being sexual awareness. lncidents exploits this assumption as a central plot and mmative device and sexuality itself as a sustained metaphor for the black (slave) woman's quest for self-determination, in ex plicit defiance of the precepts of the cult of true womanhood. HaITiet Jacobs, who was so anxious about revealing herself as the true subject of her book that she published it under the pseudonym Linda Brent, achieves a remarkable feat. She exposes the inner contradictions of the cult of true womanhood by assuming its tenets and, in so doing, revealing them to be impracticable. Thus white moral conventions are measured and found wanting by a non-white standard: they are impracticable because she, a black woman, cannot practice them. The story is a simple one: Linda Brent, house maid and slave to Dr. Flint becomes, on reaching her tifteenth year, the object of bis relentless and profoundly unwelcome attentions. As a last resort, she takes a white lover, with whom she has two children, hoping Dr. Flint will sell her in an act of revenge. Instead, he intensifies bis harassment, prompting Linda to go into hiding for 7 years. She finally gains freedom for herself and her children, who,being born of a slave woman, by law initially followed the condition of the mother. Linda/HaITiet propases through her actions and story an alternative morality lo that of true womanhood and which is grounded in her own experience. H er discourse initially assumes the prevailing gender conventions, leading to self-censure for being sexually knowledgeable and thus failing to pass moral muste r. Leading up to her decision to take a white lover, she writes, «And now, reader, I come to a period in my unhappy life 1 would gladly forget if I could. The remembrance fills me with sorrow and shame ... The influences of slavery had ... made me prematurely knowing, conceming the ways of the world» (53-4 ) .7 The next sentence is extraordinary, given the moral climate of the time and the overwhelmingly white, nineteenth century readership Jacobs was writing for: «l knew what I did, and 1 did it with deliberate calculation» (54). Jacobs neither appeals to the reader for understanding nor rebukes herself any longe r. The sentence occurs in the pivota! chapter «A perilous passage in the slave gir l's life ,» marking Linda/Harriet's 7. Harriet A. Jacobs. lncidents in tite Lif e of a Slave Girl. \Vrirten by Herself. (1861 ). Ed. Jcan Pagan Ycllin. Cambridg e: Harvard University Press. 1987. 53-4. 118 Isabel Soto trans1t10n from defensive to offensivc strategy. The strategy, as I have indicated, consists of consciously opposing her own sexual project to the powerless and subordinate sexual identily which her master attempts to impose on her. She becomes, in short, the creator of her own detlowering. The rcasons Linda/Harriet states for taking a lover deserve repeating here: «to be an object of interest to a man who is . . . not her master, is agreeable to the pride and feelings of a slave, ... lt secms less degrading to give one's self, than to submit to compulsion. There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control ovcr you, except that which he gains by kindncss and altachment. .. » (54-5). I need hardly stress tha t the key lexical it ems of this passage -master, slave, 'give one's self,' frecdom, compulsion, cont ro lreveal a finn understanding of the fundamental issue: power. As has been so fr equently pointed out, sexual abuse is as much about power as it is about sex. Linda/Harriet, then, fights fire with fire, plotting and enacting her own strategy of empowerment which takes the form of an alternative gender discourse and sustains to the Iast its dissent from established conventions of gender. Here is her final address to the reader: «Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage. I and my chi ldr en are now free1 We are ... free from the power of slaveholders ... » (201 ). She has achieved her dearest goal: freedom. She moreover subordinates if not actually scoms the prescribed goal of true (white) womanhood: marriage and its suggestion of subservient sexuality. In staking her claim to an altemative sexual. lhat is, gender discourse, Haniet Jacobs had to adopt an appropriate narrative stratcgy. The textual paradigm she adopted, the domestic or sentimental novel, obliged her to follow certain conventions -modesty, delicacy, obliqueness rather than statement-which would not alienate the white audience she was trying to reach. Consistent with her simultaneous adoption and subversion of a gender system, Jacobs initially appears to assume a discourse acceptable to her white readers. The subject of her work, of course -premarital sexual knowledge and experience, sexual abuse, illegitimate chi ldr en-made open discussion impossible. Mary Helen Washington explains the tension that binds the shape and content of Jacobs'narrative thus: «If the domestic novel of sentiment and melodrama helped [Jacobsj to reach an audience of women who were familiar with this form, it also severely limited her ability to produce a written account of her li fe as profound as her own experiences» (5). Earlier scholarly work on Incidents criticizcd its author for allowing herself to be imprisoned by the sentimental novel. Recent studies, however, conclude that Jacobs resisted its formal and id eo logical dictates in t he same way she resisted those of the cult of true womanhood. I leave the fi nal word to Jean Fagan Yellin who has done most lo reinstale Harriet Jacobs as the true author of Incidents: «Despite her language (and what other, one wonders, was available to her?) this narrator <lo es not characterize herself conventionally as ... pa<>sive ... On th e co ntrary, she asserts that she was ... an effective moral agent, a nd she takes full responsibility for her actions» (Yellin 273).8 8. The S/ave 's Narrutive. cds. Cha rl es T. Davis and Henry Lo ui s Gatcs. Jr. Oxford: Oxfnrd Uníversity Prcss. 1985, 273. Stmte¡:ies of Empmrer111n11: 1\1 ·0 Narrati1•es by Africa11 American Women 119 Critics have noted that Jacobs ' subvcrsion of textual and ge nder ca tegories simultaneously involves subvcrsion of the overwhelmingly male, African-American ur-text: the slave narrative. The standard version traces the male slave·s ílight from bondage to freedom, a flight which is also a metaphor for the passage from slavery to manhood. Women. if tbey figure at ali in these reports, are depicted as «pitiable subjects of brutal treatment, or benign nurtur ers who hclp the fugitive in his quest for freedom, or objects of scntimentality» (Washingt on 8). As 1 have alrcady noted. the critica! c on scnsus is that l ncidents depares from this model by reconling Lin<la/Harriet's vic timization but within a context of rcsistance. Nor, as in the case of most (male) slavc narrators, <loes she ab an<l on family an<l fr iends in her flight to free<lom. lndecd, rather than flee, she goes into hiding until she can take her chil clren with her. Lastly. scxuality is the central narrati ve element in which the text is grounded, further distancing it from the pattern of thc male slave narrator. To quote the invaluable Mary Hclen Washington again: «The male narrator could write his tak as a rcclamation of his manhood. but under the terms of whitc society' s idea Is of chastity and sexual ignorance for wo men [L i n<l a/HatTiet] ce rt ainly cannot claim "true' woma nhood » ( 19). Jacobs invokes inste ad a disscnting alte rnativ e to true woma nhoo<l. creating thereby the only fcmale slave nainti ve extant in which thc narrator acknowledges -one could almost say flauntsher own sexnal cxpcrience. Dissenting textual and social convcntions al so distinguish Zora Neale Huiston 's novel. Their !:.~ves Were Watching God . The publication dat e. 1937. situates it two generations on from lncídents. We are now in postbellum, post-World War I and almost post-Harlem Renaissance America. How does Eyes stand in relation to t he practice of literary and gender subversion we noted in /11 cidents'? Is there a cont inuation, cven progression of this practice? In what follows 1 will argue that there i s. T focus on two examples from Eyes that illustrate how black American women authors grounded th eir disconrse ami literary lineage in a submerged challenge to standard (male) textual practiccs an<l gender systems. My first example comes on page one of th e novel, where Hurston rccasts a canonical instance of the black Amer ican literary tradition. Hurston ·s appropriation and subsc qu ent re-vision of Fre derick Dou glass' Narrative establishes a sisterly l it era ry bo nd not only w ith Douglass himsel f, but also witb Harr iet Jacobs in the sim ultan co us a<loption and a<laptation of the slavc narrative form. As elsewhere, we ha ve to thank Henry Lo uis Ga t es. Jr. for drawing a ttention to Hurst on 's re-w rit ing of Oouglass ' famous apostrophe to the ships departing from Chesapcake Bay. Here, then, in chronological order. are the two passages: Our housc stood within a few ro<ls of the Chesapeake Bay, whosc broad bosom was cvcr white with sa ils from every quarter of the globe. Tho se beautiful vcsscls, robed in purest white, so dclightful to the eye of freemen, wcrc to me ~o many shrouded ghosts,to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched con<lition. 1 have often. in the decp stillness of a snmmer's Sabbath. stoo<l ali alone upon the lofty banks of lhat noble bay. an<l traced. with sa<l<lened heart 120 Isabel Soro and tearful eye, the countless numbcr of sails moving o ff to the mighty ocean . The sight of these always affected me powe rfull y. My thoughts would compel utterance; and there, with no audicncc but th e Almighty, 1 would pour out my sours complaint, in rn y rude way, wi th an apostrophe to th e rnoving multitude of ship s: ·You are loosed from y our moorings, and are free; 1 am fast in rny chains, and am a sla vc! You move merrily bcfore the ge ntl e gale, and I sadly befare the bloody whip1 You are freedom's swift-w in ged angels, that fl y around the world; 1 am confined in bands of iron1 O that l were free!' ( 106)9 Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For sorne they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on th e horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is th e life of men. Now, women forget ali th ose things th ey d on't want to remember, and remembcr cvcrything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly (9).10 As Gates in dicates, in the first two paiagraphs of her novel Hu rs ton engages the freedom metaphor of the ships' sails yet rewrit es it at the se mantic and the formal lcve l. She retains th e male gender of th e central metaph or -ships-transforming the literal meaning from freedom into desire. Ships bear «every man 's wish on board». For sorne, the wishes «Come in with the tide;» for others, they «sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight. never landing.» Desire, th en, <lo es not translate into fulfilment and if it does, it is tlu·ough men's expectancy and not their direct agency. 1 propose, however. that Hurston furthcr subverts Douglass. Her second paragraph omits the central metaphor. but retains its tenor: desíre. A changc in the sub je ct's gender signals a díscourse of opposition or , at leas t, tension between the two main su bj ects, ·men' and 'women. · The chiasmus in the fina sentence of the second paragraph -« Now, women forget ali those things th ey don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget »- mor eover posits an equivalence between dcsire and doing. as it does between subject a nd implied agent: womcn 'fo rget' and 'remember.' These are verbs which denote a certain kind of activity. Agcncy is confirmed in the last sentence: women ·a ct' and 'd o things.' In her opening two paragraphs, then, Hurston at a single strokc pr efigures the oppositional gender strategy which subtends her novel and reinforces a bo nd with such antebellum texts as lllcidents by «s imultaneously conforming to a nd subvcr ting patriarchal lite rary standards »" such as Dougla ss' canonical tcxt. 9. Fredc rick Douglass. Narra til• e of tire Life of Fr ederick Dou 1? loss, "' ' American S/ave ( 18 45). Ed. Houst on A. Baker , Jr . Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1986. JO . Zora Nca le Hurston. Tlreir Ey es Were W111ch i 11 1? God. London: Virago Pr css, 1990. 11 . Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. T7r e Madwoman in the At tic: The W<m um Wri1er Íll the Ni11etee llffr.Century Literary lma!!,Íllat ion. Ncw Have n: Ya ll! University Prcss, 1979. 73. Srrmegies of Empoll'erme m: Two Na rr orives by Afr ica 11 American Women 121 In Eyes. Hurston shifts the focus from the white man/black woman tensions of Jacobs' work to a woman's struggle for self-detennination within her own black co mmunity. Briefl y, lh e plot is as follows: Janie is married at the age of 16 to an affluent, older man wbose gross insensitivity dashes her dream of se lf -fulfilment through !ove. The pattern is rep eated in her seco nd , bi gamous marriage to the influential and self-serv in g Joe Starks, who dies. Emotional and personal self - realization c om e with Janie's third and final partner, Tea Cake. Jani e's story has be co me obli ged reading for w om en and has been u phe ld as a mo<lel of s elf - em pow erment. as exemplified through Jani e's relationship with Tea Ca ke. Reccnt criticism, however, has contcsted this reading and stressed Janie 's passivity towards the male patterns of dominance and abuse which are repeated in ali her relationship s. While conceding that Janie 's emotional and personal s elf -realization are ílawed, 1 believe nevertheless that she perfonns one clear act of challenge and selfassertion. lt occurs whilc Janie is still ma rri ed to Joe. Her sphere of action at this st:ge is limited to serv in g customers at the general store she and Jo e have set up in the allblack town of Eatonville, of which Jo e is the fi.r st ma yor. He excludes Janie from participating in co mmunity life, t ypifie<l in the marathon por ch-sessions in which people gather to talk and exchange sto ri es. Joe also rcquires her to gather up and co nceal her Juxuriant long black hair, a powerful composite symbol in the novel of fcmale sexuality, authenticity and liberatio n. Hence Janie's presence is dcfined in terms of absence and silence: she cannot be seen as she really is n or be heard as she wants to be. Early on in their man'iage, Joe says of his wife, « ... mah wife don 't know nothi n' ·bout no speech -m akin.' Ah ne ver married her for nothin' like dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home» (69 ). We have been ca ught, it would seem, by the long arm of the cu lt of true womanhood. lt is no coincidence that Joe consciously em ulatcs white male stand ar ds, represented in th e novel as a false value system insofar as its source lies in white patriarchal authori ty. Janie's initial response to Joe·s subjugation is, typically, defensive. She experiences a profound self-alicnation. with her tm c s elf splitting off and retreating inwardly. Time. however. erodes Joe' s physical strength and attributes, symbols of his authorit y. The tenns in w hi ch his decline is described ha ve a strong sexual resonance: «His prosperous-looking belly th at used to thrust out so pu gnaciously and intimidate folks, sagged like a load suspended from his loins» (1 19-20). Similarly, the terms in which they en gage in (verbal) battle demonstrate once more that the exercise of sexuality and the exercise of power are inseparabl e. Joe b era tes Janie for wrongly cutting sorne chewing tobacco, publicly accusing her of being «aso ldas Methusalem» and «rollin yo' pop eyes . .. with yo' rump hanging nearly to yo' knees!» (121). Emboldened hy a prior yet mild retor! before a group of (male) customers. Janie now givcs as good as she get s: «Ah ain't no young ga l nomo '. .. Ah 'm uh woman ev er y inch of me .. . Dat's uh whole lot more'n you kin say ... Talki n' 'bout me looking old! Whcn you pull down yo' britches, you look Jak de change uh life» (122-3). Tho ugh nearly eig ht y years apart and co nt ex tually different, the t enns of Linda /H ar riet 's and Janie 's struggle are identical. The cxercise of the ir sexual pn:rogativcs becomes a mcans by which to assc:rt their personal au tonomy withín male-defined pa ramct ers . In Jani e's case. she not only suhv erts her husband's 122 I sabel Soto authority. she acwally inverts the power struct ur e by duplicat i ng his insults a nd ultimately invoking and reversing the standard menopausc jibe to makc him. the man, its object. lt is a scc ne of profound emasc ul ation in which Joe loses bis virilily w hil e Janie regains her womanhood, in which he loses hi s voice ( « Jo e di dn ·1 know the words» ( 124) to express bis sen se of defeal) ami Janie recovcrs hers. Significantly. Janie gains her voice in public, a forum long denied her. T hough her public voicc is not consistently sustained in what remai us of the novel -Mary Hclen Washington notes her «Slllnning silence» (243) when Tea Cake slaps her- Ja n ie unquestionably 's peaks hcrsc lf into being: (Signifyinx 243) as Henry Louis Gates ha s pointed out. lndeed. che whole novel rnay be describcd as a speech acl in w hi ch Janie gives verbal account of hcrself (albcit in a private space) to her friend Phoeby. From the impressive roll-call of con t emporary Afr i can Amer ican women novelists the qucstion of litcrary tradition. in which Zora Ne ale Hurston has bccom e a pivota! reference point, would not appear to be espccially problema tic. Much of current schol ar ly work is dcdicated to tracing a literary hcritage which cxtends far beyond Hurston. however. The title nf Hazel Carby's Jandm•u·k study. Reconstmcting Wonumhood. speaks for itself. Mary Helen Washington bonows from po stbe llurn writer Anna Julia Cooper the eloquent metaphor -«a darkened eye restored» (xxvii)- to describe her attempt to reinstale what another critic has ca lle<l «a tra<lition of work that is quite recent. its continuities broken and sporadic» (xx). This essay seeks to contribute to that ongoing rccuperative scholarship. WORKS CITED BIEDER, MAR YELLEN. «Plotting Against the Reader. Strategies of Subver sion in Stories by Emilia Pardo Ba zán.» Indiana Joumal of Hispanic Literatures. 2: 1 (Fall 1993). CARBY. HAZEL V. Recrmstructing Womwzhood. The Emergence of the Afro- American Womwz Novelist. Oxford: Oxford Univcrsity Press, 1987. DAYIS, CHARLES T. and GATES. JR., HENRY LOUIS, e<ls. The S/ave 's Narrative. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1985. DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. Narrative of tite Lije of Frederick Douglass, an Amerirnn Slave. (1845). Ed. Houston A. Bakcr. Hannondsworth: Pengu in, 1986. GATES, JR., HENRY LOUIS. V1e Signifyi11g Monkey. Oxford: Oxford University Prcss, 1988. GILBERT, SANDRA M. and GUBAR, SUSAN. The Madwo111w1 in the Attic: The Womwz Writer in the Nineteenth-Century Literary lmagination. New Haven: Yale Un iversity Prcss, 1979. HURSTON, ZORA NEALE. Their E.ve.~ Were Watchi11g God. ( 1937). London: Virago Press, 1 990 . JACOBS, HARRIET A. lncident.1· in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Hers elf (1861 ). E d. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cam bridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Strntegi<•s uf Emp oll'e rm ent: Two Narrati1•es by Afric1111 American Wom en 123 WASHINGTON. MARY HELEN. l11ve11ted Lives. Narratives ofB /a ck Wome11. 1850- 1960. London: Virago Press, 1989. WlLLIAMSON. JOEL. William Faulkner allll Southern History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. YELLlN, JEAN FAGAN. «Texts and Contex.ts ofHatTiet Jacobs' lncidents in tlze Life of a Slave Cir/. Wriuen by Herse/f » In The S/ave 's Narratii'e. 262-282.