In this paper, I would like to attempt a comparative study of two autobiographies: Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan (1985) and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). Through a comparative study of these two texts, I would like to bring out the similarities and differences there are between caste-based and racial violence.
Toni Morrison once pleaded for the recognition of black literature on an equal footing with the white male-dominated American mainstream literature. This plea provides a basis for Dalit Literature to make a similar claim in the mainstream Indian literature (Sreenivasan 43). It also forms the basis of this paper. Dalits and African-Americans have both shared a similar history. While in India Dalits have suffered at the hands of caste-based discrimination, in America, Blacks have suffered at the hands of racial discrimination. Both the sections of society share a history of violence, poverty and exclusion.
African-American and Dalit Literature have been seen as literatures of revolt. They position themselves in opposition to the established, mainstream literature. While Dalit literature presents a picture of the excruciatingly painful experience one has to undergo if they happen to belong to a lower caste, African-American literature is composed of individual voices which speak about collective experience of the non-whites in American society. Both, the Dalits and the African-Americans share similar experiences of being discriminated against by the dominant communities in their respective societies. Since they share certain similar life experiences, their writings have also shown a marked similarity in terms of their themes and the narrative mode chosen for telling of ...
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...a means of resistance against oppression. By writing about their lives and sufferings, the Dalit and African-American authors are thus engaging in an act of resistance against the oppression they have faced and are still facing in an unequal society.
Works Cited
Dangle, Arjun, ed. Poisoned Bread. Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012. Print.
Douglass, Frederick, and Harriet Jacobs. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an
American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: The Modern
Library, 2004. Print.
Moon, Vasant, comp. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches. Vol. 5. Bombay:
Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1989. Print.
Sreenivasan, S. “Why Does Dalit Literature Matter?” Journal of Literature and Aesthetics.
8.1 (2008): 41-46. Print.
Valmiki, Omprakash. Joothan. Trans. by Arun Prabha Mukherjee. Kolkata: Samya, 2010.
Print.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
The readings were insightful and had interesting approaches to Negro mood. They had many emotional elements that were for the readers understanding of the different situations Negroes faced. When looking at the writings collectively they create a timeline. The timeline shows the various changes the Negroes mindset has gone through. The reader is exposed to three types of Negroes; one, the compliant Negro who knows his place, two, the Negro with will take his revenge and three, Negro who is conflicted between his desires and his responsibilities to his people.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. 2nd Edition. Edited by Pine T. Joslyn. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, INC., 2001.
...one existing trapped within the view of hegemonic society; angry, but powerless so long as he remains in this state. Yet Sanchez provides a succinct plan for Black Americans in their quest to ascend the Veil: to exist as both African and American while feeding white America a pacifying view of a half truth-destruction fueled by deadly ignorance. The speakers of the poems are merely victims of the same system, seeking the same freedom. While the works of these authors differ greatly, one characteristic is common in both works: The desire for power to ascend the Veil that hangs heavily upon them like a cloak that prevents their ascension. The desire to live beyond the Veil.
Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl, that will be examined in this essay are as different as black and
Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Print.
Douglass, Frederick. “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
In, “The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, readers get a first person perspective on slavery in the South before the Civil War. The author, Frederick Douglass, taught himself how to read and write, and was able to share his story to show the evils of slavery, not only in regard to the slaves, but with regard to masters, as well. Throughout Douglass’ autobiography, he shares his disgust with how slavery would corrupt people and change their whole entire persona. He uses ethos, logos, and pathos to help establish his credibility, and enlighten his readers about what changes needed to be made.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Langston Hughes was probably the most well-known literary force during the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the first known black artists to stress a need for his contemporaries to embrace the black jazz culture of the 1920s, as well as the cultural roots in Africa and not-so-distant memory of enslavement in the United States. In formal aspects, Hughes was innovative in that other writers of the Harlem Renaissance stuck with existing literary conventions, while Hughes wrote several poems and stories inspired by the improvised, oral traditions of black culture (Baym, 2221). Proud of his cultural identity, but saddened and angry about racial injustice, the content of much of Hughes’ work is filled with conflict between simply doing as one is told as a black member of society and standing up for injustice and being proud of one’s identity. This relates to a common theme in many of Hughes’ poems that dignity is something that has to be fought for by those who are held back by segregation, poverty, and racial bigotry. The poems “Visitors to the Black Belt”, “Note on Commercial Theatre”, “Democracy”, and “Theme for English B” by Hughes all illustrate the theme of staying true to one’s cultural identity and refusing to compromise it despite the constant daily struggle it meant to be black in an Anglo centric society.
The tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.
Racism is highly discouraged in modern society as the majority of people and government institutions pass laws to ensure every person is treated equally irrespective of the color of the skin. There was a time when the African-American community were considered to be second-class citizens in America. The essay below analyzes “Song for a Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker through comparison and contrast to identify the brutality faced by this community. The African American community still faced racial discrimination and violence even after the civil war era.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
In conclusion, the works of Douglass and Ellison portray the struggles of the black man at different periods in history. The difference in time setting causes the main characters to face different problems and injustices. The authors also attain different levels of literary skill, making their works appealing to different