Comparing Notes From Underground And Beloved

Lenta, M. 2010. "A chain of voices and unconfessed: novels of slavery in the 1980s and in the present day". Journal of Literary Studies. 26 (1): 95-110. (article)

The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched

This novel is a classic example of many people's lives, which includes fear, jealousy, pride and their insecurities to name a few. The transformation of the narrator from before his reincarnation until afterwards is filled with tragedy and grief, but it is through the sacrifice of his own life that he is permanently freed from his jealousy and egotism. His "punishment" or his purgatory seemed to prove how good of a person he was all

Slavery is a disappointing example of inhuman behavior, a dark past in our history books. Two stories demonstrate the cruelty of slavery while living on a plantation. Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the underground railroad and “The People Could Fly” give two different encounters on the topic of slavery. Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the underground railroad is a biography and “The People Could Fly” is a historical fiction. Both would make one wonder, what is there to live for when freedom does not exist in your life? The two different genres of books are able to give readers an understanding of how heart-wrenching and depressing life of a slave was. Both show the family of slaves taking care of one another. They show the fatherhood even though the slaves are going through harsh conditions, the way the story is told and what kind of story it is, and the secret language that the slaves have.

In these two tales of brutal bondage, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the modern reader can decipher two vastly different experiences from circumstances that were not altogether that dissimilar. Both narratives tell the story of a slave gaining his or her freedom from cruel masters, yes, but that is where the most prominent similarities end. Not only are they factually different, these stories are entirely distinct in their themes.

The society in these short stories were like a rollercoaster. They were filled with a lot of emotions that made the society not a happy one. The individuals role in society was to be alert at all times in the short story ‘‘Once Upon A Time’’. In the the story ‘‘Night Calls’’ the individuals role was that the relationships of the two main characters were rocky because the father didn’t understand his daughter. Lastly in the story ‘‘ Rituals Of Memory’’ the individuals role was to show how memories could bond two unlike people.

Neo-slave narratives were initially defined by Bernard Bell and further solidified by Ashraf Rusdhy. With both of their ideas put together, they defined neo-slave narratives as contemporary novels that assume the form, adopt the conventions, take on the first person voice of the antebellum slave narrative. They are a product of the 1960s “intellectual and social conditions associated with the civil rights and Black Power Movements.” Neo-slave narratives questioned “race and racial identity, literature and literary history, texts and intertextuality.” On the other hand, traditional slave narratives differ from the neo-slave narratives in the sense that they have a set narrator. In Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild and Kindred, the literary tropes

Suggs’ memories speak to the alienation between slaves and their relatives. The cruel actions of traders and owners would rip families apart, even severing children from their mothers. As a result, Suggs’ memory is imprinted only with the initial physical components of her children, and she lacks any knowledge of their future. Describing the children in terms of fractured body parts—“a little foot”; “the fat fingertips”—emphasizes the disconnected way that Suggs engaged with them. And she has similar snapshots of their existence in time, holding only past images

A Slave Narrative Fiction is literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people. Many scholars believed “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs was fiction before the early 1980’s. This autobiography tells the world the remarkable life of Harriet Jacobs. The book consists of torture, abuse, and the horrors she suffered as a slave girl. This is a rare look from a firsthand account of a women determined to show the world what was going on during her life.

     Just as Paul D desires a better life after slavery, so does Baby Suggs.  As a slave, Suggs was suppressed and did not experience the type of life she desired.  Morrison indirectly demonstrates this by purposely leaving out any descriptions of color in Suggs's life when she was a slave.  Morrison uses this absence of color to express that Suggs had lived the life which she had longed for.  She did not experience independence, freedom, safety nor a sense of community when she was a slave.  However, after she was sold, she searched for color, or the life that she had wanted.  For, "she had never had time to see, let alone enjoy it before" (Morrison 201). Enjoying every color that she could, trying to compensate for the time wasted as a slave,  Suggs retreated to her room and concentrated on color.  It "took her a long time to finish with blue, then yellow then green"  (Morrison 201).  Making explicit the absence of color while Suggs was a slave and then describing the way she relished the colors of her newly acquired freedom, Morrison conveys Suggs's fulfillment of the life she had longed to have when she was a slave.  Finally, as her life ended, Suggs was happy with the freedom, sense of

Slavery was a challenging and uncomfortable life for the slaves such as Jacobs. Her mistress watched over her when she was sleeping trying to provoke Jacobs into accuse herself of attempting to seduce the mistress’s husband. Slave narratives have gothic elements to it because Jacobs was fearful of her life and her mistress watched over her when Jacobs was variable from being asleep. Jacobs describes how she was in her grandmother’s attic for seven years and

Baby Suggs said in the story that she never had a sense of self. She didn't know anything about herself. She knew more about her children than she did herself even though she never knew any of her children except Halle. The sad truth is that slaves, all they thought was: Am I going to get beat today? Will I live another day?

She did not experience independence, freedom, safety nor a sense of community when she was a slave.  However, after she was sold, she searched for color, or the life that she had wanted.  For, “she had never had time to see, let alone enjoy it before” (Morrison 201). Enjoying every color that she could, trying to compensate for the time wasted as a slave,  Suggs retreated to her room and concentrated on color.  It “took her a long time to finish with blue, then yellow then green”  (Morrison 201).  Making explicit the absence of color while Suggs was a slave and then describing the way she relished the colors of her newly acquired freedom, Morrison conveys Suggs’s fulfillment of the life she had longed to have when she was a slave.  Finally, as her life ended, Suggs was happy with the freedom, sense of community and family that she had achieved.

While creating a world where the past is all encompassing leads to lack of ‘existing’ in the present; only existing in the present constructs a world of ignorance and inauthenticity. In these two communities hate and violence are ever present and always simmering beneath the narrative. This hate -- whether it be for ‘Others’ or their own people perpetuates stereotypes, or creates an insular environment where hatred breeds and misunderstanding grows. Ignorance of the past occurs for many reasons in both of the novels; fear of the future, distraction and the inability to act. However, Ricoeur states that we have ‘duty’ to remember the past: so that the next generation does not commit the same mistakes (10).

The “just cry” perhaps may mean that in order to move on from the past, they should release their without any shame or questions asked. In addition, she helps them believe in themselves and each other by telling them “You got to love it [yourself]” (104); a major part of slavery was dehumanization of the slaves, and the emphasis on the word you is to show that Baby Suggs is helping the members in The Clearing heal and get over the dehumanization and form their own self-identity. She tells them to love every part of themselves, from their heart, to their liver, and to their lungs, because they need to be loved. This scene also helps to show the reader that Baby Suggs, besides giving and receiving love, functions as a teacher of love, who shows others how to be