From reading the first five chapters of Clotel, I am strongly aware of William Wells Brown's recurrent descriptions from everything ranging from the collective list of the thoughts of the characters in the book, especially Currer and her daughters. Combined with many disturbing descriptions of scenes, such as describing the negro dogs to "attack a negro at their master's bidding and cling to him as the bull-dog will cling to a beast," (96) and "then he sent forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to the tree drew out," (98). The author takes his time to unveil instances of the inequalities that all African Americans had faced during this period in order to emotionally move his readers. This is an element of the Romanticism writing style.
Another attribute that I observed is how the writer includes a poem before every chapter, and this emphasizes how the writers of Romanticism believed that poetry was a way of expressing their imagination, which is why they valued poetry so much. Also, Brown tends to shift the mood back and forth throughout the first chapters of the book. There are constant successions of happiness and despair. For example, Chapter III tends to demonstrate brutality as it returns to the "inhumanity and barbarity of the inhabitants of Natchez," however, in Chapter IV, Brown dramatically shifts towards a very peaceful and romantic atmosphere to describe how innocent Clotel and Horatio (a white man's) relationship. The expressions of "rural beauty," "majestic magnolia," "in loving amity," "fragrance of flowers," "harmonious disorder of nature," (100) all combine together to depict a very untroubled, serene environment and nature that the couple lives in. However, although the chapter is very sweet and soft, the very next chapter begins with the slave auction in New Orleans.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Clotel - The President's Daughter: Post #1
Written and set in the Romanticism period (1800-1860), William Wells Brown's purpose of "Clotel or, The President's Daughter" is to call attention to the disturbing fact that the Founding Fathers, who supported the American concepts of freedom, equality, and the inalienable rights of the human race, were, at the time, slaveholders themselves. Brown saw the contradiction of Thomas Jefferson's actions especially among the Founding Fathers who held slaves, such as George Washington and James Madison who both had important roles in configuring the constitutional compromises of the newly formed nation of America. Jefferson, who was notable for vocalizing his chief support of the Declaration of Independence which had been written during the Rationalism period, inspired William Wells Brown to write the story about three mulattos, people with mixed white and black ancestry, who all share relations with Thomas Jefferson.
From reading the Introduction and the first chapter alone, I am now able to support my proposal of the definition of "American literature" from the demonstration of the novel. Even though "Clotel or, The President's Daughter" was written and published in London, the setting of the book is set in the United States and presents the issue of slavery within the nation before the outbreak of the Civil War of 1860, in turn, validating my impression of American literature: "the literature classified by literary text, compositions, or publications of any genre, which corroborates with the distinctive elements of American writing within the region of what is now the United States. This would entail the collective literature written and published in any region of the world, written by authors who may or may have not been born in America, but have firsthand knowledge or relations with the country..."
I have observed from the first chapter that the narrator of the novel is very outspoken. Brown first educates his readers about the attempts taken by the legislature (Henry Clay and John Randolph) to modify the laws regarding slavery. He voices his opinion about the wrongs of the institution of slavery without directly announcing it. Including much background about slavery, he also informs his readers about how slave families were oftentimes separated and the "many signals pointing to heaven, and whose ministers preach that slavery is a God-ordained institution!" (88.) Slaveholders, especially those in the South, had justified slavery by claiming the Scriptures verified its integrity. Under the Romantic style of writing, unlike Puritan and Rational writing, the writing typically used intuition, valued feelings, and believed in their inner experiences and the power of imagination. Although "Clotel" contains different names for the characters in the story as opposed to the actual names, the real Sally Hemmings is represented by Currer, a slavewoman who is the mother of Jefferson's two children, Clotel and Althesa. I think that Brown was not far off from the actual story, whether the accusations of Sally Hemmings were accurate at all, and his use of his imagination and his rationale is clear from the first chapter where he says, "Thus closed a negro sale, at which two daughters of Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of American Independence, and one of the presidents of the great republic, were disposed of to the highest bidder!" (88). His mode of expression clearly voices his opinionated views and provokes his readers in a tender way, which are attributes to the writing of the Romanticism period. I don't understand why Brown uses this technique, but it is a possibility of representing the ideal concept that people are mandated to seek paths to perfection and unspoiled nature; I believe that this illustrates how the path to perfection may be full of twists and turns.
From reading the Introduction and the first chapter alone, I am now able to support my proposal of the definition of "American literature" from the demonstration of the novel. Even though "Clotel or, The President's Daughter" was written and published in London, the setting of the book is set in the United States and presents the issue of slavery within the nation before the outbreak of the Civil War of 1860, in turn, validating my impression of American literature: "the literature classified by literary text, compositions, or publications of any genre, which corroborates with the distinctive elements of American writing within the region of what is now the United States. This would entail the collective literature written and published in any region of the world, written by authors who may or may have not been born in America, but have firsthand knowledge or relations with the country..."
I have observed from the first chapter that the narrator of the novel is very outspoken. Brown first educates his readers about the attempts taken by the legislature (Henry Clay and John Randolph) to modify the laws regarding slavery. He voices his opinion about the wrongs of the institution of slavery without directly announcing it. Including much background about slavery, he also informs his readers about how slave families were oftentimes separated and the "many signals pointing to heaven, and whose ministers preach that slavery is a God-ordained institution!" (88.) Slaveholders, especially those in the South, had justified slavery by claiming the Scriptures verified its integrity. Under the Romantic style of writing, unlike Puritan and Rational writing, the writing typically used intuition, valued feelings, and believed in their inner experiences and the power of imagination. Although "Clotel" contains different names for the characters in the story as opposed to the actual names, the real Sally Hemmings is represented by Currer, a slavewoman who is the mother of Jefferson's two children, Clotel and Althesa. I think that Brown was not far off from the actual story, whether the accusations of Sally Hemmings were accurate at all, and his use of his imagination and his rationale is clear from the first chapter where he says, "Thus closed a negro sale, at which two daughters of Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of American Independence, and one of the presidents of the great republic, were disposed of to the highest bidder!" (88). His mode of expression clearly voices his opinionated views and provokes his readers in a tender way, which are attributes to the writing of the Romanticism period. I don't understand why Brown uses this technique, but it is a possibility of representing the ideal concept that people are mandated to seek paths to perfection and unspoiled nature; I believe that this illustrates how the path to perfection may be full of twists and turns.
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