--This is a sentimental love story, but is most notable in our time for its nostalgic vision of 'slavery days.' How does it depict slavery and how does its depiction differ from your understanding of the institution? How are we to deal with the evident racism here (do you think readers understood how racist this was?)?--The story is told in dialect by a faithful former slave, with the depiction of regional and racial dialect as one of the major elements of its claim to regional "authenticity" or "accuracy." How does your experience of the dialect in this story differ from that of Jewett's New Englanders? How does it shape your experience of the text?
--The story narrates an encounter between a Northerner and the former slave and thus reflects the major dynamic of this kind of fiction: northerners reading about the south. Why do you think Northerners were so fascinated by the old south after the Civil War? How is the nostalgia about the south similar to or different from Jewett's nostalgia for a faded New England?
Sam, the slave, seems to have affection for and even love Marse Chan. He sees their relationship as an unbreakable bond. He and Marse were playmates as children, but even after living as his slave, Sam feels a loyalty to Marse than I wouldn't have thought many slaves would feel towards their white owners. I think the romanticized version of the South during and after the Civil War is much different from how the institution really functioned. With that being said, I'm assuming this was a popular story at the time, so I doubt many people realized the racist nature of the story. Looking at slavery in a nostalgic way and looking at the relationship between slave and owner as more of a friendship makes slavery seem less severe and horrible. The people reading this story were most likely educated whites who could have owned slaves, so they wouldn't have wanted to read an account of a slave hating his or her master.
ReplyDelete1. In Page's "Marse Chan", he definitely depicts a highly romanticized vision of slavery and the plantation era in the American South. Sam, the old slave that long belonged to Marse Chan, is a kind, funny, warm-hearted man, and he clearly has a lot of affection and love for his master Marse Chan, His telling of Marse's tale to the narrator and his nostalgic, wistful tone in telling the childhood stories of Marse and his love Anne leads the reader to believe that Sam was less of a slave and more of a faithful compadre to Marse Chan in his life's adventures. Obviously, this differs greatly from the reality of the institution of slavery, which generally and widely was understood to be wealthy whites owning blacks and treating them as property, doing the work that the whites were not willing to do themselves in order for the whites to make profits off of their plantations. Slavery is probably the worst thing to ever happen in America, and its repercussions are still being felt all over the world, so I actually found this story pretty ignorant and offensive. Imagine if I wrote a contemporary story about DaQuan, a McDonald's employee, who "jus luvz to fuck da hoez and smoke da crack and make dat paper for da white man up at McDonald's headqwataz" - everyone would be incredibly offended and call me a racist! In Page's time, Northerners were very interested in tales of the South, but they still lived in a racist, prejudiced society, so the realities of the horrors of slavery and plantation life were much less appealing than a nice old black man who loves his white master and feels that he is a part of his life to the extent that Marse Chan's life story is much more important than his own. Sam is basically the ideal slave in the mind of the white reader, and I find the depiction of Sam by Page to be disrespectful, inaccurate, and ultimately incredibly offensive. Also, the way Page wrote Sam's dialogue further serves to enforce the idea that Sam is ignorant and simple-minded and has no more desire in life to be the perfect slave to his white masters. Also, the dialogue made the story unintelligible in some parts. The narrator's final parting with Sam, giving him several "spare eighteen pence" is the last blow to Sam's humanity, reminding him that though his story was good, he's still a lowly old black man and the white narrator is wealthy and able to ride away when he's done being entertained by the black man's story, just as the Northerners would pick up "Marse Chan", be entertained by the simpleton's story, and move on with their wealthy, white lives.
ReplyDeleteEven though I agree with what Paul has to say, I think this story is extremely sentimental and it gives a different perspective of a slave and master relationship. I think having it come from a slaves perspective makes it more credible. The relationship between Sam and Marse Chan is more like a friendship than an ownership. Especially if you think of other slave narratives and how they were treated by their owners, it makes this story of the owner/slave relationship different. Throughout the story Marse Chan relates to Sam more as a brother than slave, an instance in the story that stands out to me is when they are going to battle and Marse Chan trusts Sam to take care of him if he dies. I really enjoyed this story because it isn't your typical slave narrative, it gives a different depiction of slave life. I may be completely wrong but when reading this a very common and popular story came into my mind, Romeo and Juliet. It sort of has some elements that correlate. The families hating each other but the children being in love. It's interesting to compare this story to that one and the relationships between it. Even though racism is present in the story, given the time that this story was written, I don't think readers would identify it as racism. Agreeing with what Amanda said, I think anyone reading this story was probably educated and white, so the way people spoke or interacted with slaves was probably normal.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this story and it definitely struck a chord with me emotionally. But I do agree that it sheds false light on slavery. I don't think that the days of slavery are anything to feel "nostalgic" about. The relationship between Sam and Marse Chan was almost one of brothers or close friends. There certainly could have been relationships like this between slave and owner but a vast majority were not so sugar-coated. This story is blatantly racist because it depicts slaves as willing participants and what their owners are doing them a favor by keeping them because they couldn't last on their own. I think that the reason these stories were written like this is because Northerners were reading them. They wanted to believe that slavery life "wasn't so bad". I think that they would have felt extreme guilt and shame if they knew how horrible life really was for the slaves. By depicting them as having a friendly, close relationship with their masters, it makes the Northerners feel better and gives them some ease of mind which is not okay. They should have known what was really going on.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the Northeners have nostalgia for the old South because it was a time period and region that they didn't have a lot of exposure to the South, and were not used to that way of life. The Civil War was over and they wanted to see how the other half of the country lived, the part that they were unfamiliar with.
ReplyDeleteSlavery, as depicted through the narration of the story by a former slave, Sam, is shown in a positive light, as if the slaveowners were doing a favor to the slaves, who otherwise could not make it on their own. Sam appears to be quite fond of his old master, wanting his approval and is grateful to him. And, he loves Marse Chan, even though he is owned by him and must serve him. It seems like Sam thinks he is almost a part of the family. This differs considerably from my understanding of slavery. Slaves were treated like animals, forced to do grueling labor, and live in squalid conditions. It would be plausible to infer that they did not like their masters, who abused them, which would explain why so many of them tried to runaway.
ReplyDeleteSam's character is an unmistakable racial stereotype of the time. He is the happy slave, who's not smart enough to fully realize his situation. Even though he is free, he still recognizes his status below the Northern white man. He uses a racist dialect and is a little slow. I'm not sure if readers at the time understood how racist this was. Since most of the readers were Northerners, they might not have. Not knowing much about the south, perhaps they mistook the stereotype for reality. On the other hand, maybe they did, and it was simply socially acceptable.
Slaver in this story is very sentimentalized in the bond depicted between Sam and Master Chan. The relationship between Sam and Master Chan does not depict the normal slave-master relationship that we know. Their relationship is depicted as one of true friends or brothers. While these relationships could have occurred within a select few, the vast majority of slaves were worked to the bone and whipped if they did something wrong, and there wouldn't be a plantation owner's son there to take the whippings. The institution of slavery as I understand it was one of oppression and brutality, working the slaves from early morning into the night, and the living conditions were absolutely terrible. The readers of the post-Civil war era would not find the racism in this story because it is so romanticized. The fact that Master Chan tells Sam that he has the permission to marry Judy shows racism in that the white southerners did not believe it was right for the slaves to marry unless they were given consent. Also, Sam is not allowed to go into the school rooms with the master and Anne and later on is forced to join the Confederate Army when his master joins. This story shows a wonderful relationship between a servant and his master but it does not accurately depict slavery in the South.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to me the way the relationship between Sam and Marse Chan was conveyed. My understanding of slavery was that slaves were treated as sub-human, not as any sort of confidant or close personal friend. Furthermore, I DEFINITELY wouldn't think that the slaves would have this perspective. I could see a slave owner having some sort of seeming loyalty and affection for a slave, in the same way–and this is very crude–you might expect a dog owner to feel about their dog. From the slaves, though? Everything I've learned about slavery told me that slaves spent all of their non-working hours conspiring ways to escape the south and slave life. Maybe that wasn't the case, just the impression I had.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the racism goes, what can you do? You can't hide from the fact that this was the dialect, the dialogue and the accepted behavior of the time. You can't hide from your history, or run from it. You can't change it, or cover it up. It's sad. It's disgusting. It tears at you. But you can't just avoid it or skip over it.
I think that it would be ridiculous to believe that black americans enslaved in this country would have meaningful personal relationships with their enslavers, unless there was some sort of Stockholm syndrome situation.
ReplyDeleteI never lived in the deep south, but I have to imagine that the enslaved knew that they could be free in other places. And if that is true, I find it incredibly hard to believe that the enslaved would be a-ok with being another person's property. You can't enslave someone's humanity, and enslavement attempts to do just that. If the situation were reversed, if white americans, in their majority, were enslaved, there certainly wouldn't be an nostalgia for the era.
"Dem wuz good ole times, marster--de bes' Sam ever see! Dey wuz, in fac'! Niggers didn' hed nothin' 't all to do--jes' hed to 'ten' to de feedin' an' cleanin' de hosses, an' doin' what de marster tell 'em to do; an' when dey wuz sick, dey had things sont 'em out de house, an' de same doctor come to see 'em whar 'ten' to de white folks when dey wuz po'ly. Dyar warn' no trouble nor nothing.”
ReplyDeleteThe author of this piece idealized the life of a slave. He tried to avoid the topic of hard labor, by making the narrator into a house slave, rather than one that worked in the fields. Since the former slave is only a narrator, and the true story is supposed to be about Marse Chan, the reader sees no hardships of slavery, so that they can sympathize more fully with the plantation owners. This is also why all of the experiences between master and slave are pleasant ones. The reader must sympathize with Marse Chan and not Sam. The author also avoids the breaking up of families, due to trade slave, and flips it, so that the plantation owners are really trying to bring families together by buying and selling them. Also, the author tries to make ties to some kind of familial bond, by asking Sam to take care of his parents, after he has passed away. Marse Chan also promises Sam freedom, after his death, this is not something that occurred frequently in the South, and moreover if he was set free, there is a good chance another white man would make him into a slave.
The racism is illuminated by Sam’s dog-like characteristics. He is proud when Marse Chan stands up to Ole Master and says that Sam is his, and takes ownership of him. This is not something any white American of this time would appreciate, but is something that blacks “should” appreciate. Also, Sam waits, follows, and is treated like a pet by Marse Chan. Sam also has undying loyalty to this family, like a pet dog would. In the end Sam still chases after Marse Chan’s dog, and the parallels are strengthened. The illiteracy of the southern blacks at this time, is referred to several times. Each time Sam is thankful that someone read the letters to him, but never mentions that no one offered to teach him how to read them himself. Racism infiltrates every paragraph of this short story. I don’t think the people of this time saw it as racism though. I believe they saw it as a story of romance. It allows white readers to feel as though slavery was not as horrible as everyone made it out to be, and they should not feel guilty about letting it proceed as long as it did.
--This is a sentimental love story, but is most notable in our time for its nostalgic vision of 'slavery days.' How does it depict slavery and how does its depiction differ from your understanding of the institution? How are we to deal with the evident racism here (do you think readers understood how racist this was?)?
ReplyDeleteIt was hard for me to read this story. I could barely get through the dialect, and even after some times on certain words, I began to skip over them and move onward with the story as much as I could. The relationship between Sam and Marse Chan seemed to be better than mostly what my ideas of what slavery was like. I have heard both ends of the spectrum, where owners were horribly cruel to their slaves, to owners who treated the slaves as if they were hired help, or with some humanity. When first reading through I did not get a sense of overwhelming racism for the time period in which the story was written. As I reflect, I think the strongest theme of racism is the fact that Sam has this strong commitment to Marse, that would reach beyond his duties as a slave. Sam tells his story of Marse almost as though he would have been there even if he were not enslaved to do so. The fact that Sam is ignornant intellectually because he did not have the resources to learn, it does not mean that because he is a black slave that he is emotionally ignornant or unaware of the fact that he is enslaved.