Dignity in Southern Society in A Lesson Before Dying, Autobiography of Jane Pittman, and Of Love and Dust
The ante-bellum Southern social system put blacks in a low economic and social class and limited their pursuit of happiness. The aristocracy firmly held blacks in emotional and spiritual slavery. Cajuns, Creoles and poor whites maintained a low status in society, which frustrated them because they felt they should be superior to blacks and equal to whites. Racism was a base of southern society and a hope to improve life and gain respect.
Ernest J. Gaines grew up in Southern Louisiana and his aunt Augusteen Jefferson taught him "the art of living with dignity" (Current 201). In The Autobiography of Miss
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At the end of the Civil War, Ticey (Jane), an eleven year-old slave, is introduced to personal identity by Corporal Brown, a Yankee soldier who passes through her plantation: "Ticey is a slave name..." he says to her and temporarily renames her Miss Jane Brown (Pittman 8). Critic Valerie Babb concludes that "the soldier's altering a label of slavery reveals a new world of control to her...for the first time in her life Jane has the option of deciding whether or not she will retain it" (82). Jane quickly learns that her newly found identity threatens the master and mistress, and she is beaten for demanding to be called "Miss," a title of respect. She shows them she is an individual with dignity, rather than an inferior being and takes the control that they assumed over her. The soldier directs Jane's strong character and convictions which results in her insubordination toward white authority. She continues through her life looking for "the One," a black leader to free her people from the bondage to whites.
Where Jane decides to live in rebellion, her husband Joe chooses a different method to escape bondage. After the slaves were emancipated, many plantation owners took advantage of the naive freedmen by contracting them as underpaid field laborers. Joe Pittman desperately tries to avoid the economic entrapment of field labor that is
However, the introduction of the Atlantic slave trade created a new rung on the social hierarchy. African slaves were treated as animals as opposed to humans. Discrimination and racism were all too prevalent with the development of slavery and led to brutal treatment of many Africans. Slaves were beaten, sometimes without a reason. They were denied rights such as property, voting, and education. They were viewed as complete property of the landowners and their children were not even exempt from living the life of a slave. The development of the Atlantic slave trade system led to a growth of racism in the South and this problem will continue to plague American society in the future.
“Racism was used aggressively to divide poor white southerners from slaves. The relationship between the wealthy and the poor was aggressively exploited by the rich white slave holder to ensure the poor whites non-slave holder that they had a similar cause” (Shaping America: Lesson 16). This caused non-slave holding whites to have a similar view as latter. Non-slave holding whites were in direct competition with slaves and more often than not were forced out of work due to the free labor slavery had offered.
Traditional views of the Antebellum South oftentimes ignore class divides within the American South. African-Americans and Whites are oftentimes viewed as being divided by race with all Whites and African-Americans being equal. However these ideals ignore the seventy-five percent of southerners which did not own slaves and the steep divides between African-American slaves with different roles. Primary sources from authors who experienced the Antebellum South, the American Civil War, and, or Reconstruction alert their audiences to societal divides which existed within each perceived race. Following the abolishment of slavery, economic class divides among whites were mitigated and whites view of African-Americans became standardized. Whites began to only recognize African-American as a rival to their power in all capacities, and as such vilified all African-Americans.
Based on the evidence supplied by author Kent Anderson Leslie, slaves in antebellum Georgia did not always live under the oppressive system of chattel labor. According to Leslie, the rules that applied to racial hierarchy were not strictly enforced, especially when it came to propertied and wealthy planters such as David Dickson who chose to raise his mixed-race daughter at home. Amanda Dickson’s experiences during Reconstruction demonstrate that she had much more freedom after slavery was abolished than may have been expected before the Civil War. Amanda Dickson’s experiences and those of her mother in particular do not fit the presumed mold of oppressed slave with no opportunity for a better life.
One of the many challenges associated with writing is that of writing style. It can help highlight the work when used effectively, or the opposite, if used ineffectively. Some have an intuitive grasp on matter while others struggle. In his book “A Lesson Before Dying”, author Ernest J. Gaines effectively conveys his story through his stylistic choices. He does this through Jefferson’s diary in chapter 29, Grant’s observations and thoughts throughout the story, and the “third-person" perspective of chapter 30. These things elevate the immersion of the story and gives further insight into what Gaines is trying to convey.
Racism in the South had remained a constant from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of reconstruction. Before the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment, slave owners did not only use racism to justify slavery, but they used race to stop the endeavors of their slaves. Document 6 Cites how slave owners told their slaves they could not learn to read or write because African Americans did not possess the intelligence to do so. Some slave owners actually believed this racist notion while others lied to prevent their slaves from learning to read and developing an efficient form of communication. After the end to slavery, racism in the South continued to live on. In addition to day to day racism, groups formed to ensure that African
1) Whitney 's cotton gin made cotton generation gigantically beneficial, and made a regularly expanding interest for slave work. The South 's reliance on cotton creation attached it monetarily to the manor framework and racially to white amazingness. The social culture and political mastery of the moderately little manor gentry disguised subjection 's extraordinary social and financial expenses for whites and also blacks. Most slaves were held by a couple of substantial grower. At the same time most slave-owners had few slaves, and most southern whites had no slaves whatsoever. All things considered, aside from a couple of mountain whites, the majority of southern whites firmly upheld subjection and racial amazingness on the grounds that they esteemed the trust of getting to be slave-owners themselves, and in light of the fact that white racial character provided for them a feeling of prevalence over the blacks. The treatment of the monetarily profitable slaves fluctuated extensively. Inside the limits of the brutal framework, slaves longed for opportunity and attempted to keep up their mankind, including family life. The more established dark colonization development was generally supplanted in the 1830s by a radical Garrisoning abolitionism requesting a prompt end to bondage.
Race and class affect the southern colonies in many ways. If you were not from a certain class, you were a nobody. Social class is defined by what they did, the planters were known to be the richest and most powerful and everyone else was less. The servants were less than the planters because they worked and did everything for them. Planters had the ability to do whatever they wanted with the servants and most times they took advantage of that. The lowest class were African Americans, and at the time they were nothing else but slaves. They were treated worst then the servants. They had no rights to vote, or to own land. They basically took over the servant’s positions. Slaves cost more than indenture servants because they were sold as lifetime
Jane Pittman is born into slavery on a plantation somewhere in Louisiana. Jane is called "Ticey" during her days as a slave and has no parents; her mother died as a result of a beating when Jane was a child, and Jane did not know her father. Until she is around nine, Jane works in the Big House caring for the white children. One
In telling the stories of people leaving their homes, families, and oppression for equality, freedom, and a better way of life, Wilkerson describes the frustrations that compelled people to flee, the decision making process, the impact on their relationships to family, friends, and community, the challenges they faced, and their achievements and development during their stay. Throughout these different elements and with the use of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, all of whom migrate to different cities and across different decades, Wilkerson invokes the implications of race, gender, class, and politics. In Gladney’s case, the decision to flee from Mississippi was made by her sharecropper husband, whose cousin was severely beaten over false accusations. Starling, who experienced financial mobility working at a Detroit plant, was forced to return home to Florida due to the riots and mob. Additionally, Foster’s brilliance and qualifications begin to be acknowledged when a white woman publicly
Many laws were created in an effort to ensure a white man’s position over a black man’s position. It was made illegal for an African American to insult any white man regardless of either person’s position (red). Also, slave owners were allowed to punish their slaves in any form they deemed necessary. Often they would punish a slave more harshly in order to show the rest of their slaves the repercussions for their missteps. Southerners also used race to justify the negative claims about slavery. They claimed that the white colonists were civil while the African Americans were barbaric and dangerous. When referring to African Americans, white southerners used language similar to the language used by educated Englishmen while describing the extremely poor (red). This influenced others to believe that African Americans were beneath them, which led more and more people to begin to condone slavery.
The book assigned to all incoming freshmen of the College of Charleston to read over the summer was a poignant look into the prejudice-scarred past of the American south. Named for those few months in 1964 that redefined freedom and equality in America, it included many noble and inspirational characters, and choosing one to write about was no easy task. However, reading Freedom Summer, I found myself drawn to one character in particular: Chris Williams. The youngest of those who ventured into the heart of bloody Mississippi that summer, this 18-year old boy grew into a man by the time that summer was through with him. I cheered him on as he left his comfortable home, his high school diploma, and even his hippie hairstyle in Massachusetts. I was in awe of
Throughout history, blacks have been treated the poorest out of all races. Although everyone under God is to be treated equal, whites thought of themselves as being the superior race. In 1619 a Dutch ship brought 20 slaves to America and it took nearly 240 years for slavery to end in 1865(Ronald, , para. 3).These helpless slaves were taken to America and put to work growing anything from cotton to tobacco. Slaves had absolutely no rights. They were simply property of their “Massa’.” Being disrespectful to a white man could get a Negro killed and they just accepted the facts of the matter. The south was the most notorious in its treatment of slaves and slaves would run away. It was a big risk, but a slave that made it to a
Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the
The first chapter, The Rebirth of a Caste, argues that after the Civil Rights movement and with the collapse of Jim Crow in the south, there needed to emerge a new caste system. Alexander argues that racism was created to fulfill particular ends; the profits of the planter class. “Deliberately and strategically, the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves. White settlers were allowed greater access to Native American lands, white servants were allowed to police slaves through slave patrols and militias, and barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor. These measures effectively eliminated the risk of future alliances between black slaves and poor whites. Poor whites suddenly had a direct, personal stake in the existence of a race-based system of