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My scholarly papers were much more coherent than my blog posts (I hope)
So for most of this week, I was away from the Internet entirely, and not posting about IBARW (that's International Blog Against Racism Week), and reading instead.
But then I read this blog post by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
karnythia about white people using International Blog Against Racism Week to be.....racist. WAY TO FAIL, GUYS.
My post is in the spirit forrachelmanija's IBARW Mini-Challenge, which basically was to post about books written by people of color during IBARW.
In my last semester of undergrad, I took a class called "Disability in Literature." In this class, we read a number of books, including Jane Austen's Persuasion and Keri Hulme's Bone People. The book that stuck out for me the most is one that was written in 1859, but remained obscure until 1982, when Henry Louis Gates, Jr. rediscovered it, and republished it. This book, written by Harriet E. Wilson, has a full title of Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There. The title seems to explain it all, but what I love about this book is that it follows the patterns of so many Victorian novels written at the same time, but shatters the formulas, due to the author acknowledging the soul-crushing societal structures of racism and ablism, in addition to sexism.
It also stands as a giant middle finger (one of many) to people who say that there is no "canonical literature" written by people of color.
I wrote a paper about this novel for my class, and I've edited it to make it presentable in blog format. [Also, my paper dealt with Jane Austen's Persuasion, but it seemed inappropriate to focus equally on that book during a post written for IBARW, so I took those parts out.]
For our class, before reading this novel, we read a chapter from a book called "Invalid Women" by Diane Herndl, which was written in 1993. In it, Herndl sets out to describe the figure of the invalid woman that has often been represented in literature written from 1840-1940. She describes a "person who is sick or disabled" and "a person who lacks power" (Herndl 1). The focus on power is important for Herndl, who feels that the power structures surrounding the lives of invalid women can be used to point out other unbalanced power dynamics. She asserts that the invalid woman "can serve as the focus for questioning the history and ideological power of representation" in the character's society (Herndl 9). In fact, Herndl says that an invalid woman's presence insists on a reading of how power plays out in the narrative, the family, and on society (Herndl 4). Harriet Wilson's Our Nig portrays Frado as a female invalid whose presence does fulfill Herndl's definition by living a pitiful life under the oppressive social structure of racism.
In Harriet E. Wilson's Our Nig, the protagonist Frado becomes an invalid woman as the novel progresses. Frado's circumstances include racism alongside anti-feminism as a social structure that denies power to certain groups of people, and thus disables their role in a narrative. After being abandoned by her mother to the Bellmont family, Frado spends her life in an inescapable servitude to a white family. While some family members pity and try to comfort Frado, her life is dominated by Mrs. Bellmont, whose constant demands of Frado enforce very violent consequences if not met, even while Frado is still a child. There is an almost constant stream of scenes in which Frado is beaten by Mrs. Bellmont. When Frado cries for James, who is sick, "Mrs. Bellmont [finds] her weeping on his account, shut her up, and whipped her with the raw-hide" (Wilson 77). Frado's body grows increasingly disabled. By focusing on Frado's invalid body, a reader can easily see that her suffering is caused by a racist society still struggling with its recent history of slavery. Frado's body is denied full health because of her status as a black woman with no option but to work for an abusive white mistress. She is powerless to escape the damning effects of racism, just as her body is made powerless by its illness.
As the novel progresses, Frado's health is irreparably damaged by the hard labor and beatings that she is forced to endure, even while still a child. Despite her status that progresses more and more to that of an invalid's, Frado is denied the opportunity to be an invalid by Mrs. Bellmont: "Nig would work while she could remain erect, then sink down upon the floor, or a chair, till she could rally for a fresh effort" (Wilson 64). While part of the definition of an invalid woman calls for the character to be denied the opportunity to perform productive work, work remains the purpose in Frado's life. Due to her position as a black person, Frado is denied the opportunity to truly be an invalid woman, although the author does allow her invalidism to disable the narrative.
The slow destruction of Frado's body is mirrored by the novel's narrative structure. Written in 1859, the beginning of the novel reads like a Bildungsroman. Frado is faced with horrific childhood experiences, just like protagonists in other Bildungsroman, such as Jane Eyre. Instead of slowly gaining friends after initial bad experiences, like Jane Eyre, Frado's life is a constant string of disappointments. The only Bellmonts in whom Frado finds solace either marry and move away, or die. Mrs. Bellmont even sells Frado's dog, Fido, "as if to remove the last vestige of earthly joy" (Wilson 61). At every opportunity, the author denies her invalid protagonist happiness, and thus denies the reader the opportunity to be satisfied by the course of the narrative. At the end of the novel, the story resists a Victorian ending of marriage or death; instead, Frado's story follows her life after marriage: she is left by her husband, and abandons her child (Wilson 127, 129). Rather than reward her for her years spent in violent servitude, the narrative resists a satisfying conclusion, just as Frado's body denies her the power she needs to claim her own role in society. In Our Nig, Frado's role as an invalid forces the reader to question the role of racism in society, while also disabling the narrative.
No matter what your favorite book genres are, you can find some POC-authored books to read - even if it's sentimental Victorian-esque novels, such as this book. I highly recommend joining or watching the LiveJournal community![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50books_poc to find some new titles/authors to read.
Other IBARW Links:
oyceter points us to the founding letter for the Carl Brandon Society.
coffeeandink suggests that there be fan-made versions of white-washed book covers.
As always, an exhaustive list of posts from IBARW can be found atibarw.
But then I read this blog post by
karnythia about white people using International Blog Against Racism Week to be.....racist. WAY TO FAIL, GUYS.My post is in the spirit for
rachelmanija's IBARW Mini-Challenge, which basically was to post about books written by people of color during IBARW.In my last semester of undergrad, I took a class called "Disability in Literature." In this class, we read a number of books, including Jane Austen's Persuasion and Keri Hulme's Bone People. The book that stuck out for me the most is one that was written in 1859, but remained obscure until 1982, when Henry Louis Gates, Jr. rediscovered it, and republished it. This book, written by Harriet E. Wilson, has a full title of Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There. The title seems to explain it all, but what I love about this book is that it follows the patterns of so many Victorian novels written at the same time, but shatters the formulas, due to the author acknowledging the soul-crushing societal structures of racism and ablism, in addition to sexism.
It also stands as a giant middle finger (one of many) to people who say that there is no "canonical literature" written by people of color.
I wrote a paper about this novel for my class, and I've edited it to make it presentable in blog format. [Also, my paper dealt with Jane Austen's Persuasion, but it seemed inappropriate to focus equally on that book during a post written for IBARW, so I took those parts out.]
For our class, before reading this novel, we read a chapter from a book called "Invalid Women" by Diane Herndl, which was written in 1993. In it, Herndl sets out to describe the figure of the invalid woman that has often been represented in literature written from 1840-1940. She describes a "person who is sick or disabled" and "a person who lacks power" (Herndl 1). The focus on power is important for Herndl, who feels that the power structures surrounding the lives of invalid women can be used to point out other unbalanced power dynamics. She asserts that the invalid woman "can serve as the focus for questioning the history and ideological power of representation" in the character's society (Herndl 9). In fact, Herndl says that an invalid woman's presence insists on a reading of how power plays out in the narrative, the family, and on society (Herndl 4). Harriet Wilson's Our Nig portrays Frado as a female invalid whose presence does fulfill Herndl's definition by living a pitiful life under the oppressive social structure of racism.
In Harriet E. Wilson's Our Nig, the protagonist Frado becomes an invalid woman as the novel progresses. Frado's circumstances include racism alongside anti-feminism as a social structure that denies power to certain groups of people, and thus disables their role in a narrative. After being abandoned by her mother to the Bellmont family, Frado spends her life in an inescapable servitude to a white family. While some family members pity and try to comfort Frado, her life is dominated by Mrs. Bellmont, whose constant demands of Frado enforce very violent consequences if not met, even while Frado is still a child. There is an almost constant stream of scenes in which Frado is beaten by Mrs. Bellmont. When Frado cries for James, who is sick, "Mrs. Bellmont [finds] her weeping on his account, shut her up, and whipped her with the raw-hide" (Wilson 77). Frado's body grows increasingly disabled. By focusing on Frado's invalid body, a reader can easily see that her suffering is caused by a racist society still struggling with its recent history of slavery. Frado's body is denied full health because of her status as a black woman with no option but to work for an abusive white mistress. She is powerless to escape the damning effects of racism, just as her body is made powerless by its illness.
As the novel progresses, Frado's health is irreparably damaged by the hard labor and beatings that she is forced to endure, even while still a child. Despite her status that progresses more and more to that of an invalid's, Frado is denied the opportunity to be an invalid by Mrs. Bellmont: "Nig would work while she could remain erect, then sink down upon the floor, or a chair, till she could rally for a fresh effort" (Wilson 64). While part of the definition of an invalid woman calls for the character to be denied the opportunity to perform productive work, work remains the purpose in Frado's life. Due to her position as a black person, Frado is denied the opportunity to truly be an invalid woman, although the author does allow her invalidism to disable the narrative.
The slow destruction of Frado's body is mirrored by the novel's narrative structure. Written in 1859, the beginning of the novel reads like a Bildungsroman. Frado is faced with horrific childhood experiences, just like protagonists in other Bildungsroman, such as Jane Eyre. Instead of slowly gaining friends after initial bad experiences, like Jane Eyre, Frado's life is a constant string of disappointments. The only Bellmonts in whom Frado finds solace either marry and move away, or die. Mrs. Bellmont even sells Frado's dog, Fido, "as if to remove the last vestige of earthly joy" (Wilson 61). At every opportunity, the author denies her invalid protagonist happiness, and thus denies the reader the opportunity to be satisfied by the course of the narrative. At the end of the novel, the story resists a Victorian ending of marriage or death; instead, Frado's story follows her life after marriage: she is left by her husband, and abandons her child (Wilson 127, 129). Rather than reward her for her years spent in violent servitude, the narrative resists a satisfying conclusion, just as Frado's body denies her the power she needs to claim her own role in society. In Our Nig, Frado's role as an invalid forces the reader to question the role of racism in society, while also disabling the narrative.
No matter what your favorite book genres are, you can find some POC-authored books to read - even if it's sentimental Victorian-esque novels, such as this book. I highly recommend joining or watching the LiveJournal community
50books_poc to find some new titles/authors to read.Other IBARW Links:
oyceter points us to the founding letter for the Carl Brandon Society.coffeeandink suggests that there be fan-made versions of white-washed book covers.As always, an exhaustive list of posts from IBARW can be found at
ibarw.