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Evolution of Black Women Autobiographical Writing in the White Territory

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Evolution of Black Women Autobiographical Writing in the White Territory From Oppression To Expression: Evolution Of Black Women Autobiographical Writing In The White Territory S. Farhad Research Scholar (Ph.D.) Asst.Professor Sri Mittapalli College Of Engineering Guntur Guide: Dr. Rajashaekhar Pateti Acharya Nagarjuna University India Abstract: The paper pinpoints the revelation, evolution and development of the Black Women under the impact of slavery and modern day United States. Words became the rudimentary factor of expression to the Black women and they found the genre of autobiography more powerful. They made this genre a conscious identity for their social, political and economical. Hence the Afro- American autobigraphy in this paper tries to reveal it as a constructed, constituted and formed of the specific practices and discourses of a specific people and their response to their time and place. Black women‟s autobiographies seem torn between exhibitionism and secrecy, between self-display and self-concealment. Key words: slave writing, autobiography, exploitation, oppression, search for identity and expression “The genre of autobiography lives in the two worlds of history and literature, objective and subjective awareness. It is dialectic between what you wish to become and what society has determined you are". (Stephen Butterfield. 1974:1) www.ijellh.com 41 The Afro-American autobiographical statement is the most Afro-American of all Afro- American literary pursuits. The autobiographical statement, up until the contemporary era, remained the quintessential (certainly the most predominant) literary genre for capturing the deep cadences of the Afro-American being, in which the deepest aspirations are revealed and evolution and development under the impact of slavery and modern day United States capitalism is traced. Black autobiography is the desire and effort of Black writers to examine themselves and to articulate and celebrate those experiences and ideals that are uniquely personal. Black autobiography does two things – it affirms the writer‟s potential for growth and brings his realization of that worth into the foreground by telling a true story of someone who has travelled a different path. In these terms, total subjective impression is the message of the Black American autobiographical writing. As Stephen Butterfield rightly puts it (1974:1), “In Black autobiography, the wounds on the human face heal to defiant scars; the eyes take on the glint of pride and awareness; the mouth sets in determination; the humanity blooms under the pressure of the boot into a fierce, tough flower, whose blossom tells us that until people are altogether emptied of every quality which distinguishes them from mere implements, there will always be a limit to how many times the foot can strike before it is left behind by a bloody stump.” Black writers offer a model of the self which is different from White models, created in response to a different perception of history and revealing divergent, often completely opposite meaning to human actions. The “self” in Black autobiography on the whole, taking into account the effect of Western culture on the Afro-American, is not an individual with a private career, but a soldier in a long, historic march towards Canaan. The self is conceived as a member of an oppressed social group, with ties and responsibilities to the other members. It is a conscious political identity drawing sustenance from the past experience of a group and giving back the irony of its endurance fashioned into armour and weapons for the use of the next generation of fighters. It is a bid for freedom, a beak of hope cracking the shell of slavery and exploitation. It is also an attempt to communicate to the White world what Whites had done to them. www.ijellh.com 42 The Afro-American autobiography must be seen as constructed, constituted and formed of the specific practices and discourses of a specific people and their response to their time and place. Hannah Nelson, a contemporary Afro-American woman, argues that: The most important thing about black people (in the United States) is that they don‟t control anything except their own persons, so that everything black people think and do has to be understood as very personal (992: 277). Black autobiographies tend to cluster around periods, like, the 1840s and 50s during the height of the Abolitionist Movement, the 1920s and 30s during the Harlem Renaissance, the organization of CIO and the zenith of the Communist Party; or the 1940s and 70s during the great urban rebellions and the emergence of Black power. The particular bias behind this autobiographical writings during this period is that the Black writer, regardless of his class origin, has been to repair the damage inflicted on him by White racism, rend the veil of White definitions that misrepresent him to himself and the world, create a new identity, and turn the light of knowledge on the system that holds him/her down. In examining the social and political context out of which the Afro-American self has evolved, it is important to note that in its most essential aspect, slavery did not differ very much from the “formal freedom” that was granted to Black people in the United States (the full and unencumbered franchise was not granted to Afro-Americans until the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1965) and that slavery and its aftermath, represented a system of organized and sustained violence, psychic and otherwise against a subject people. The primal slave narrative reached the full peak of its strength during 1620s or so, before the fall of slavery. The narrators were among thousands who resisted, who escaped from the “yawning oven”, protected from the heat by the angel of revolutionary purpose. They had no rights whatever that would not be violated at any time according to their master‟s discretion. Their standard of living was sometimes below that of the cows and chickens they were classified with. Most of them were torn from their families, under-clothed, over-worked, whipped, sold, starved, chained, tortured, sexually assaulted, hunted, deceived and betrayed under all kinds of circumstances by Whites from every social class. They won their way to freedom past slave catchers and patrol teams and then wrote as a means of fighting back against their enemies. www.ijellh.com 43 More indirect form of oppression awaited them in the North, forms that could not be shaken off by knocking down an overseer or running away, and that was no less rooted in the very organization of society. The whole repressive energies of the slave system had been devoted to keeping them ignorant and fearful and they had to discover some means within themselves to free their minds and their bodies from the legacy. Even in the anti-slavery movement, they were often urged into mere support roles for White activists and discouraged from developing their own powers of speech and thought. The slave narratives fought these forms of expression too, testifying to the mental capacities of the slave, arguing tirelessly for his humanity, answering over answering over and over the same shallow, contemptible rationalization for slavery, demanding equal treatment for Black people in all areas of public life, and wrestling with the mental devils of self-doubt and despair. And little by little, book by book they constructed the framework of Black American literature. Autobiography in their hands became so powerful, so convincing a testimony of human resource, intelligence, endurance and love in the face of tyranny, that, in a sense, it set the tone for most subsequent Black American Writing. The slave narratives of men developed around this desire for freedom. The act of resistance is the backbone of his selfhood, his opinions, goals, politics, dreams and accomplishments. Many narratives do make blatant and melodramatic appeals to White pity, and piety, but they usually appeared beside images of defiance. The political purpose of the author is to portray the misery of slavery‟s victim while at the same time making attempts at humanizing and dignifying them. Narratives of Henry Bibb, (a fugitive who returned to the south, after his escape) Revered Noah Davis, (a former slave), Moses Brandy, Josaiah Henson and Samuel Ringgold Ward, transformed the work ethic into a source of racial pride and a special quality of blackness that would enable the Negro people to throw off their rulers and surpass them in achievements. J.W.C. Pennington, Samuel Ward, William and Ellen Craft, Frederick Douglass and John Thompson were somewhat less squeamish about being found impure at the bar of God – all described with pride and humour the incidents in which they successfully resisted tyranny by resorting to deceit. Violent resistance was defended ideologically by reference to the traditions of the American Revolution. David Walker in his Appeal of 1829 which antedates the contribution of Samuel Ward by a generation, argues that, www.ijellh.com 44 It is more harm for you to kill a man, who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drive of water when thirsty; in fact, the man who will stand still and let another murder him, is worse than an infidel (1969: 37). Their goals had to be won on three levels: freedom of the body, freedom of the mind and spirit, and freedom for the whole Negro people. The metaphor of flight applied to the quest for identity helps to tie these levels together. This is what Richard Wright had done in his autobiography, Black Boy, a highly acclaimed autobiography during the slave period. What the writer struggled to achieve is self-description, and self-respect, a life where clean, positive tenderness, love honour, loyalty and coherent tradition are possible, life as a free and equal human being belonging to a free social group, and the destruction of the system of society that prevents him from realizing his dream.
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