Annotated Bibliography

The Language (Voice) of the Slave Narrative

Belinda Jackson

Beardslee, Karen E. “Through Slave culture’s Lens Comes the Abundant Source: Harriet          A. Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl.” MELUS Vol. 24 No 1 (Spring     1999): 1-17 [Info Kat]

Karen Beardslee states the voice of the slave narrative speaks of the prejudice of slavery or its inherent foul treatment of black people. Women’s rights, however, is the voice she attributes to Harriet Jacobs slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  Beardslee states that Harriet Jacobs showed the injustice black slave women endured.  The author also briefly explains why some in the literary world have challenged the validity of Jacobs’s narrative; the inconsistency of the characters speech has been cited as the reason.  Jacobs is also said to have used the characters dialect to expresses  their role  in life, such as that of the Aunt who only used the slave dialect when she performed her role as mother and cook. (123 words)

Butterfield, Stephen T. “The Use of Language in the Slave Narratives.” Negro American                      Literature Forum, Vol. 6. No. 3 (Autumn, 1972): 72-78. [African American         Review]

Support of the abolitionist is the reason Stephen Butterfield gives for there being slave narratives.  He does cite that we see elements of style in contemporary writings by black authors, which originated from slave narratives. Some of the elements of style he attributes to the slave narratives are: “concrete diction, irony, exact imagery, outrage, satire and understatement.”  Of each style listed, different authors of slave narratives commonly uses understatement, irony and exact imagery.  Butterfield points out that diction is the key to distinguishing authentic “Afro-American English.”  Despite the fact that writings of that era conformed to that of genre, Butterfield expressed the belief that slavery was really shown through the language of the slave narrative. (115 words)

Dillard, J.L. “The Relative Value of Ex-Slave Narratives. A Discussion of Schneider’s   Paper.” Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties. Georgia.  University        of Georgia Press. 1993. Pgs 222-231.

The validity of slave narratives was challenged in J.L Dillard’s article. Several slave narratives are stated for using false dialect.  In Fredrick Douglass’s well-known autobiography the dialect is said to be “faked”.  Interviewers for the WPA slave narratives are blamed for not following the actual dialect of the slaves they were interviewing.  The WPA narratives believed false by researchers, for the lack of recognizing different dialects among field slaves and house servants, which interviewers did not take into account when recording data given. To show the pronunciation of spoken words used by slaves, interviewers were said to have changed words. (100 words)

Kautzsch, Alexander. “Liberian Letters and Virginian Narratives: Negation Patterns in Two New Sources of Earlier African American English.” American Speech 75.1 (2000):       34-53. [American: History and Life].

In this article Alexander Kautzech discusses the similarities and differences between two different types of slave writings in two separate areas.  He studied the Liberian letters of slaves in North Carolina and the narratives of slaves in Virginia.  He was searching for a link between the language of slaves in North Carolina and Virginia.  Kautzech did find a link in how verb tense was used by both the slaves of Liberia and Virginia.  He did discover by looking at how slaves from plantations spoke versus how slaves that were around people who spoke Standard English.  Kautzech also discovered that no matter who the slaves misspelled words or broke down the pronunciation in a different manner, that they all spoke a common from of Standard English. (125 words)

Levy, Andrew. “Dialect and Conventions: Harriet A. Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 45 No. 2 (September 1990):   206-219. [America: History and Life/JSTOR].

In the opening of Andrew Levy’s article he speaks of Harriet Jacobs’s narrative as being authentic simply because the dialect and word choice was in correct.  Levy referred often in his article to the fact that slaves were considered unable to communicate correctly so they’re writing or use of incorrect dialect and style in their narratives proved that what they wrote was valid. Levy commented on dialect being strongly related to “realism” which more than the slave author’s style of writing made their narratives more appealing to other races.  Levy stated that, “African-Americans needed to develop a language that appeared superficially guileless and deferential to nonspeakers.”  (106 words)

Mackethan, Lucinda H.  “Black Boy and Ex-Couloured Man: Version and Inversion of             the Slave Narrator’s Quest for Voice.” The College Language Association           Journal (CLA) Vol. 32 No. 2 (December 1988): 123-147.             [MLAbibliography/FirstSearch].

Lucinda Mackethan starts her article by saying that black narrative authors used a style of writing that showed a slaves quest for and ultimate gain of freedom.  She goes on to state that by writing of their life’s experiences in the first person, slaves proclaimed themselves master over their masters.  Mackethan cites the slave authors as using a “double I” voice being the past and present views of their lives to show their quest and ultimate outcome of freedom.  Lucinda Mackethan clarifies that slave narratives use many tones of voice to express irony, self-perception and a separation from the world in which they lived. (104 words)

Samuels, Wilfred D. “Disguised Voice in the Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African.” Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 19, No.        2 (Summer 1985): 64-69. [African American Review/ JSTOR].

Wilfred Samuels begins his article by pointing out the deceptive nature of Olaudah Equiano’s narrative.  He felt that Equaino’s style of writing his narrative as just a travel book loaded down with names and events that appealed to the white audience was ingenious.  Samuel’s states that this use of deception allowed Equiano to portray to his audience the true mistreatment of slaves and their ability to rise above their masters but in a nonthreatening manner.  The use of a subservient voice to persuade is attributed to Olaudah Equiano by Wilfred Samuels. Equaiano is also said to have used words to include his audience on what was transpiring in the story.  (110 words)

Sekora, John. “Comprehending Slavery: Language and Personal History in Douglass”                Narrative of 1845.” The College Language Association Journal (CLA) Vol 29           No. 2 (December 1985): 157-170. [MLA biblioghraphy/FirstSearch].

Due to the increasing emergence of slave narratives to support abolitionist, white publishers decided what voice slave narrative authors would use.  If a slave narrative was not presented in a way that downplayed the mistreatment of slaves, then they were not published.  For this reason, slave narratives were written using hidden or double meaning.  John Sekora felt that Fredrick Douglass used, “the eloquence of silence as well as the liberating power of words,” to present his version of a slaves life.  Sekora also states that Douglass wrote himself as an object to portray the mind set of the slave masters treatment of slave instead of expanding with vivid imagery their mistreatment. (111 words)