Date: December 6, 2009
To: Dallas ISD School Board
Re: High School English Curriculum
I am writing to suggest an addition in the curriculum for the district’s high school level English classes. I am currently a student at Austin College, a small liberal arts institution located in Sherman, TX. During the past semester I have been enrolled in an English class entitled “Slave Narratives.” For those of you who are not familiar with the genre, slave narratives are autobiographical works written by freed or escaped slaves. The autobiographical works that I’ve read while enrolled in the class have been authored by many figures that students are familiar with, but in reality know little about. Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, and many others have authored slave narratives that detail their lives while in slavery. I would argue that including their narratives in the high school English curriculum would allow the students to view these individuals in a broader light, not only as historical figures but as authors, too.
Additionally, the many of the conventions of the slave narrative genre would benefit the development of the students’ critical thinking skills. Slave narratives contain well articulated arguments for the humanity of slaves and the abolition of slavery. Slave narratives often build upon other literary genres, such as gothic and sentimental literary conventions. Exposing students to slave narratives would also expose them to a wealth of additional literary techniques and traditions. Exposure to these texts, along with an analysis of the specific rhetoric, would greatly prepare the students for entering college.
Specifically, I would like to recommend that The Bondwoman’s Narrative be added to the reading list for upper level English classes. The Bondwoman’s Narrative is a recently discovered text, thought to be written by a fugitive slave named Hannah Crafts. The narrative is edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor and director of Harvard’s African-American Studies program. The novel is an especially unique gem from the slave narrative genre and is particularly relevant to English classes because it was written as a fictionalized autobiography. The novel intertwines the literary conventions of slave narratives, gothic novels, and sentimental novels into a text that transcends the boundaries of each literary tradition. It would be an especially mind-opening experience for the students.
I hope that you will seriously consider my proposal. Too long have we allowed our educational system to give students an incomplete and disjointed view of historical figures and events. Adding slave narratives to the curriculum of upper level English classes will allow the students to make critical connections between the many different subjects that they are taught in the classroom.
Sincerely,
Aushianna Nadri
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The Bondwoman's Narrative -- Rhetorical Situation -- Blog Post Seven
In the preface to The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Hannah Crafts questions her text, asking “Have I succeeded in portraying any of the peculiar features of that institution whose curse rests over the fairest land the sun shines upon? Have I succeeded in showing how it blights the happiness of the white as well as the black race?” (Crafts 3). It is at this early point in the novel that the reader can first glean Craft’s purpose for writing the text. Much of The Bondwoman’s Narrative focuses on highlighting the effects of slavery on all individuals, both white and black. Craft’s does this in a significant way: she uses her text to illustrate the problems of a legalistic world view, one in which laws must be followed, even if they are inherently unjust. Crafts uses this rhetorical strategy in order to demonstrate the damaging and cruel effects of slavery.
Legalism in The Bondwoman’s Narrative
As the text is a novel, Crafts never pointedly asserts that the characters are being excessively legalistic. However, Dickson D. Bruce Jr. argues that Crafts deals with the issue of legalism in two specific ways within the text. First, Crafts uses the character “Mr. Trappe” as a mechanism to critique the legalistic world view. Second, she discusses the deathbed promise that another character makes to their dying father, a promise that prevents that individual from purchasing and freeing Crafts” (Bruce 130-131). According to Bruce,
Crafts also critiques legalism, or rule-based morality, by introducing “Mrs. Henry’s” character into the text. Mrs. Henry and her husband share an anti-slavery sentiment, but own the slaves that she inherited from her father. Hannah becomes acquainted with Mrs. Henry after being injured in an accident. As Hannah recovers from her injuries, she becomes very fond of the Henrys and asks Mrs. Henry to purchase her. Hannah pleads with Mrs. Henry, “…you can save me from this…I do not ask you to buy me and then set me free…Let me perform the menial service of your household…I care not…all I ask is to feel, and know of a certainty that I have a home, that someone cares for me, and that I am beyond the grip of these merciless slave-traders and speculators” (Crafts 125).
Although she expresses her desire to purchase Hannah, Mrs. Henry ultimately refuses, asserting that the purchase would violate a promise she made to her father on his deathbed — a promise that she would never purchase or sell a human being. After Hannah begins to beg, Mrs. Henry asks “…Dear Hannah, do you wish me to break that vow?” (Crafts 127). Hannah, lost in thought, informs the reader:
Works Cited
Bruce, Jr. Dickson D. “Mrs. Henry’s ‘Solemn Promise’ in Historical Perspective.” In Search of Hannah
Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman’s Narrative. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Hollis
Robbins. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. 129-144. Print.
Buell, Lawrence. "Bondwoman Unbound: Hannah Craft’s Art and Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literary
Practice." In Search of Hannah Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman’s Narrative. Eds.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Hollis Robbins. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. 16-29. Print.
Crafts, Hannah. The Bondwoman’s Narrative. New York: Warner Brothers, Inc., 2002. Print.
Legalism in The Bondwoman’s Narrative
As the text is a novel, Crafts never pointedly asserts that the characters are being excessively legalistic. However, Dickson D. Bruce Jr. argues that Crafts deals with the issue of legalism in two specific ways within the text. First, Crafts uses the character “Mr. Trappe” as a mechanism to critique the legalistic world view. Second, she discusses the deathbed promise that another character makes to their dying father, a promise that prevents that individual from purchasing and freeing Crafts” (Bruce 130-131). According to Bruce,
“Throughout the novel…Crafts creates an opposition between what might be described as a formalistic, even legalistic approach to human affairs and an approach based on deeper, more complex understanding of moral situations. The world, Crafts stresses, is not the sort of place for which rules should serve as the only guide to right action. Indeed a rule-governed approach to morality can lead to a kind of moral blindness” (Bruce 131).The character Trappe, a retired lawyer, participates in the slave trade by purchasing attractive slave-women and selling them to traders that work mainly with brothels. Bruce argues that Trappe “plays the role of Hannah’s nemesis for much of the novel. Greedy, cruel, and indifferent to other’s suffering, Trappe is the personification of all that is evil in slavery” (Bruce 131). Through Mr. Trappe, we learn that Crafts’ mistress is actually the child of a slave who was switched at birth with the stillborn infant of her mother’s mistress. We also learn that it was Mr. Trappe who “discovered the secret of” Hannah’s mistress’s birth and that he had used his knowledge to blackmail the mistress. When Hannah’s mistress was unable to meet the terms of his blackmail, she attempts to flee. Eventually she is captured and returned to Mr. Trappe, who informs her that she is to be sold to slave traders. While informing her of this, Mr. Trappe tells her:
“…you will regard me as an enemy, as one who embittered your existence…yet in doing so you will be unjust. Rather blame the world that has made me what I am, like yourself the victim of circumstances…You are not the first fair dame whose descent I have traced back…to a sable son of Africa, and whose destiny has been in my hands as clearly and decidedly as you must perceive that yours is now…My conscience never troubles me…The circumstances in which I find people are not of my making. Neither are the laws that give me an advantage over them. If a beautiful woman is to be sold it is rather the fault of the law that permits it than of me who profits by it…Whatever the law permits, and public opinion encourages I do, when that says stop I go no further…” (Crafts 98).Mr. Trappe’s speech to Hannah’s mistress is an explicit illustration of the very mindset that Crafts seeks to critique. Trappe justifies his actions by arguing that the law permits him to do so. Crafts disavows this type of legalistic justification for immoral actions and further positions her text in a way that opposes this mindset. To Crafts, morality must not be dictated merely by legal codes; rather, individuals must be guided by “conscience, empathy, and an appreciation for human needs in a way that transcends human contrivances, rules, and creeds” (Bruce 134).
Crafts also critiques legalism, or rule-based morality, by introducing “Mrs. Henry’s” character into the text. Mrs. Henry and her husband share an anti-slavery sentiment, but own the slaves that she inherited from her father. Hannah becomes acquainted with Mrs. Henry after being injured in an accident. As Hannah recovers from her injuries, she becomes very fond of the Henrys and asks Mrs. Henry to purchase her. Hannah pleads with Mrs. Henry, “…you can save me from this…I do not ask you to buy me and then set me free…Let me perform the menial service of your household…I care not…all I ask is to feel, and know of a certainty that I have a home, that someone cares for me, and that I am beyond the grip of these merciless slave-traders and speculators” (Crafts 125).
Although she expresses her desire to purchase Hannah, Mrs. Henry ultimately refuses, asserting that the purchase would violate a promise she made to her father on his deathbed — a promise that she would never purchase or sell a human being. After Hannah begins to beg, Mrs. Henry asks “…Dear Hannah, do you wish me to break that vow?” (Crafts 127). Hannah, lost in thought, informs the reader:
“I could not say that I did, yet my heart rose against the man, who in a slave-holding country could exact such a promise. Since in a multitude of cases the greatest favor that a mild kind-hearted man or woman can bestow on members of the outcast servile race is to buy them. I almost felt that he had done me a personal injury, an irreparable wrong” (Crafts 127).Bruce argues that although “Mrs. Henry may be a woman whose motives are innocent and pure…her fidelity to her vow turns out to be a fidelity to a proslavery pledge” (Bruce 131). Essentially, Crafts encounter with Mrs. Henry serves to illustrate the “moral blindness” that legalism perpetuates. Although Mrs. Henry is keeping an oath, not following a specific law, the outcome is the same: she sentences Hannah to further, and even more cruel, enslavement. Bruce contends
“All she [Mrs. Henry] can propose is to persuade Hannah’s owner to sell Hannah to Mrs. Henry’s friends, the Wheelers of North Carolina. Mrs. Henry assures Hannah that the Wheelers will show her the same consideration she has received from the Henrys themselves. Arranging the sale, she unwittingly sentences Hannah to the most brutal slavery the young woman has ever known” (Bruce 130).Craft’s critique of legalism is particularly relevant to the audience that she was attempting to reach with her text. Lawrence Buell argues that “much of the artfulness of The Bondwoman’s Narrative consists in scripting episodes for white northern readers that will make them feel vicariously entrapped by slavery…” (Buell 27). This becomes especially clear when we consider Craft’s critique of legalism in terms of the Fugitive Slave Act. As we have learned in class, the Fugitive Slave Act prohibited all citizens, both northern and southern, from aiding escaped slaves. Those who followed the law, even though they believed the law was unjust, would be criticized by Crafts as being morally blind. According to The Bondwoman’s Narrative, unjust laws can not and should not guide the decisions people make concerning moral dilemmas.
Works Cited
Bruce, Jr. Dickson D. “Mrs. Henry’s ‘Solemn Promise’ in Historical Perspective.” In Search of Hannah
Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman’s Narrative. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Hollis
Robbins. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. 129-144. Print.
Buell, Lawrence. "Bondwoman Unbound: Hannah Craft’s Art and Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literary
Practice." In Search of Hannah Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman’s Narrative. Eds.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Hollis Robbins. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. 16-29. Print.
Crafts, Hannah. The Bondwoman’s Narrative. New York: Warner Brothers, Inc., 2002. Print.
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