Event Title
*The Revolutionary Quality of Allusions found in Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Faculty Mentor
Katie Simon
Keywords
Katie Simon
Abstract
This essay examines the cultural allusions made by Harriet Jacobs in her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs references a variety of sources, from the European literary canon to the songs and performances of the slaves on the South Carolina plantation where she was a slave. The author pays particular attention to a Christmas dance called the Jonkonnu and the way its performance subverted the social order, giving life to those that Orlando Patterson calls “socially dead” in his book Slavery and Social Death. The author discusses the allusions in relation to Patterson’s theory of social death and comments on the contextual effect each allusion has in the novel, focusing particularly on the racial and social implications.
Session Name:
Revolution, Representation, and Reform
Start Date
4-4-2014 1:15 PM
End Date
4-4-2014 2:15 PM
Location
HSB 211
*The Revolutionary Quality of Allusions found in Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
HSB 211
This essay examines the cultural allusions made by Harriet Jacobs in her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs references a variety of sources, from the European literary canon to the songs and performances of the slaves on the South Carolina plantation where she was a slave. The author pays particular attention to a Christmas dance called the Jonkonnu and the way its performance subverted the social order, giving life to those that Orlando Patterson calls “socially dead” in his book Slavery and Social Death. The author discusses the allusions in relation to Patterson’s theory of social death and comments on the contextual effect each allusion has in the novel, focusing particularly on the racial and social implications.