Pirates, Runaways, and Long-Lost Princes: Race and National Identity in Transatlantic Adventure Fiction
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Pirates, Runaways, and Long-Lost Princes: Race and National Identity in Transatlantic Adventure Fiction Sarah H. Ficke A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: William L. Andrews Laurie Langbauer Allan Life Jeanne Moskal Rebecka Rutledge Fisher © 2010 Sarah H. Ficke ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract Sarah H. Ficke: Pirates, Runaways, and Long-Lost Princes: Race and National Identity in Transatlantic Adventure Fiction (Under the direction of William L. Andrews and Laurie Langbauer) This project brings together adventure novels by white British authors, like Frederick Marryat, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and H. Rider Haggard, and African American and Afro-Caribbean texts by authors like Frederick Douglass, Pauline Hopkins, and Maxwell Philip, to argue that the sensational elements of the adventure genre that were so effective in developing British national identity were appropriated by African American and Afro-Caribbean authors to re- imagine national identity as a flexible and multi-ethnic concept. This project extends previous scholarship on the genre by placing white British adventure novels in the transatlantic context demanded by both the genre’s subject matter – the Caribbean, Africa, the wilds of the United States – and publishing history in order to demonstrate that the adventurous vision of national identity featured in those novels was part of a larger, multi-vocal conversation through which national identity was constantly being redefined. I argue that adventure novels were open to this type of rewriting because they were popular and accessible, and because they define national identity at the point where it is most vulnerable: on the nation’s frontier. This project focuses on three characters who exist on the margins of the nation – pirates, runaway slaves, and long-lost princes – and the ways that they and the plot elements surrounding them are used iii to affirm or challenge the nation’s physical, legal, and imaginative boundaries. More than just melodramatic window-dressing, these elements – such as a birthmark that identifies an ordinary man as a long-lost prince – provide an imaginative framework through which authors could engage with serious debates over race, kinship, and national belonging. Though we may be hesitant to connect literary figures like William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, or even Mary Elizabeth Braddon to this most popular of popular genres, adventure fiction deserves recognition for its important role in shaping transatlantic and transracial perceptions of what it meant to be Afro-British, Afro-Caribbean, or African American in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. iv In loving memory of my mother, who taught me to read v Acknowledgements I would like to thank my co-directors, professors William Andrews and Laurie Langbauer, for their excellent advice, insights, and encouragement. Their help through every step of this process has been invaluable. I also want to thank the other members of my committee, Allan Life, Jeanne Moskal, and Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, who added their insights to this project. I am very grateful to Cheryl Thayer, Amanda Page, Hannah Rigby, Leslie Davidson, Sarah Shaw, Sarah Cantrell, and Katie Carlson, who were always ready with perceptive and humorous comments that helped me improve my work. Special thanks go out to my family for their support and encouragement. Finally, I am especially grateful to my husband, Erik, who was there for me every step of the way. vi Table of Contents List of Illustrations.………..…………………………………………………………………….…………………………………….ix Introduction.……………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………………1 Chapter I. Patriots and Pirates.………………………………………………………………………………………………..36 Frederick Marryat………………………………………………………………………………………………..….39 Frederick Douglass………………………………………………………………………………………………….60 Maxwell Philip…………………………………………………………………………………………………………70 II. Plantation Slavery and the Adventure Novel.……………………………………………………….…88 Plantations as a Site of Adventure…………………………………………………………………………..96 Domesticated Adventure………………………………………………………………………………………112 III. Deconstructing the Plantation.……………………………………………………………………………..139 Clotel: Vision and Re-Vision…………………………………………………………………………………142 Adolphus: The Post-Plantation Novel…………………………………………………………………….163 Blake: Looking Beyond Borders……..……………………………………………………………………...172 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………........……………………….193 IV. Long-Lost Princes.…………………………………………………………………………………………………196 William Sheppard………………………………………………………………………………………………….200 H. Rider Haggard……………………………………………………………………………………………………216 vii Pauline Hopkins…………………………………………………………………………………………………….235 Sutton Griggs…………………………………………………………………………………………………………249 Conclusion: Looking Forward………………………………………………………………………………………………….256 Bibliography……………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………..280 viii List of Illustrations 1. Illustration captioned “Into the Unknown” from H. Rider Haggard’s African adventure novel Allan Quatermain………………………………………………………………....22 2. Illustration of Percival defending Vincent from bloodhounds……………..……………………….57 3. Illustration of Gabriel charming the snake that bit Edward…………………………………………116 4. “Conflagration and Explosion of the Ben Sherod,” a riverboat on the Mississippi……………………………………………………………………………………………………….144 5. “Betting” A Negro in the Southern States” from the 1853 London edition of Clotel………………………………………………………………………………………………………….145 6. “Mulumba N Kusu” from Pioneers in Congo by William Sheppard………………………………204 7. Dr. Sheppard and his friend, Prince Mashamalianga…………………………………………………..212 8. “The Approach to Milosis,” featuring European-appearing boats and a shining dome in the distance……………………………………………………………………………………227 9. Illustration of Trinidad from Froude’s The English in the West Indies………………………….262 ix Introduction Race and National Identity in Transatlantic Adventure Fiction In May of 2008 Indiana Jones, that quintessential scholar-adventurer, cracked his whip on the big screen for the first time in nineteen years. Adventure sells, as movie companies are well aware (see also the phenomenal popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean), especially in the summer months. Adventure movies are simple: an hour or so of incidents strung together with a basic quest-style plot that bring the heroes near death, but never near enough to give the viewers cause for serious disquiet or food for deep contemplation. The story should be light, the plot arc familiar, and the conflict free of moral ambiguity. The character types should be recognizable, and the setting easy to grasp. John Cawelti, in his 1976 study Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture, stresses the essential timeliness of individual adventure stories or genres. He writes that “Adventure situations that seem too distant either in time or in space tend to drop out of the current catalogue of adventure formulas or to pass into another area of the culture” (40-41). While this is true, there is also a strong nostalgic trend in adventure stories, which often use hindsight in order to both glorify and simplify past times and events.1 The adventure stories that we read and watch, whether they are contemporary or nostalgic, say a lot about the culture we inhabit. As we decide what types of action plots we enjoy, and the settings for those plots that we find acceptable, we participate in a reconfiguration of our own 1 See, for example, the Cold War setting chosen for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and compare it to the moral ambiguity found in the science fiction movie Iron Man (2008), which is set in Afghanistan during the contemporary War on Terror. culture and our own history, sampling and erasing elements of it as we see fit. While this may be seen as a harmless pastime, it can have disturbing implications. Cultural critic Paul Gilroy, in his 2006 book Postcolonial Melancholia, points out the troubling aspects of recent British revivals of nationalist World War II nostalgia, the concurrent “mysterious evacuation of Britain’s postcolonial conflicts from national consciousness” (89) and the impact of that pairing of nostalgia and evacuation on contemporary British race relations. This complicity of contemporaneity, forgetfulness, and nostalgia is not a recent problem. At the height of the British Empire, British adventure novels alternately presented their readers with nostalgic images of past glory and contemporary scenes of action, both of which reimagined the imperial project as a simplified plot. However, neither the past nor the present can be plotted so easily, and the adventure novels of the nineteenth century display the complexities and tensions of the imperial project despite (or perhaps because of) their structural simplicity and two-dimensional nature. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the connections between British adventure fiction, Afro-Caribbean fiction, and African American fiction from 1833-1907 and the ways in which they construct, examine, and/or interrogate the relationship between race, citizenship, and national belonging. I chose the nineteenth century adventure genre because its subject matter and conventions made it a unique arena within which writers could discuss the topic of race explicitly in the context of citizenship, national, and international identity, subjects that