Slavery permeates the work

I suppose I hadn’t given much thought to how slavery would exist in the texts of this class. Had I spent some time before the semester trying to picture the works we would read, and what role slavery would play in informing the literature, I imagine I would have guessed “an important one.” Nearing the end of the semester, I see now just how important that role is. Every novel we have read has dealt directly (Kindred, The Known World) or indirectly (Quicksand, Going to Meet the Man, Gabriel’s Story) with slavery and its effects. What I mean is that whether or not a work’s story is directly tied up in slavery, there is always an existing specter in the background.

I think this has much to do with the history of African Americans in America. The reason African Americans exist in America as a race is slavery. This means that slave origins can never fully be extracted from the African-American experience. A sad reality, but nevertheless one that these authors must work within the confines of.

For example, in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Helga Crane feels the urge to leave the South, owing to her view that the people around her aren’t as cultured, modern, or cosmopolitan as she is. Perhaps she sees those around her as too close to slavery, instead of the intellectual, worldly being she imagines herself to be. So she moves to New York, and Denmark, and back to New York, all the while trying to find a place where like-minded individuals will embrace her. She never does, and eventually ends up in a rural town, married to a preacher and surrounded by almost slave-minded black women. Her depression reaches a record high, and she wastes away producing a string of babies for her husband. I see Helga as too focused on rejecting society and focusing too much on trying to be an idealized version of herself, rather than truly examining who she is, and being okay with it. This is a sort of double consciousness, except that her subjective view of herself is flawed. This may have been a bit of a digression, I fear…

Obviously Kindred and The Known World are more focused on slavery, setting their stories in the early- to mid-1800s. In Kindred especially, Octavia Butler presents with a woman, Dana, who has no sense of connection to her past. By transporting her back in time, Butler could perhaps be suggesting that we are now so far removed from slavery that we’ve lost touch with the effects it continues to have on our society. Only by forcing Dana to experience it for herself is a deeper understanding and appreciation gained. An extreme example, for sure, but Butler’s point is well-taken.