Week Eight- The Plantation Genre: Chesnutt, Dunbar and Corruthers
The power of literature in social struggle and change cannot be underestimated. Charles Chesnutt stated, “As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted” demonstrating his hope that what can occur in fiction can sometimes occur in life as well (“Charles W. Chesnutt Quotes”). Chesnutt understood social inequality and struggle well. Throughout history great authors have created great works in the attempt to promote a higher consciousness and calling among their contemporaries. Sometimes however, authors have used literature to extend their personal prejudices. Within the context of literature, the reader experiences a safe location to experience emotions such as love, joy, loss or pain and possibly develops a new understanding of life. The shape of the new understanding though resides in the hands of the author; its value is in the life of the reader. As a genre, plantation literature became a tool of change in the antebellum United States ultimately to the detriment of African Americans. The next sentence in Chesnutt’s statement reflects the disappointment he lived as the Negro’s hope of equal rights faded: “More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust” (“Charles W. Chesnutt Quotes”). The plantation tradition was a tool used to encourage racism and subvert African Americans in post Civil War America.
Originally, the plantation tradition of literature was an attempt to idealize the plantation and slavery systems of the South. The genre traces its roots to Kennedy’s The Swallow Barn. Written in the 1830’s, contented slaves served noble masters and mistresses on a Southern plantation (Andrews 579). As an antithesis to books such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the slave narratives, these books provided an alternative to the domestic fiction of the North as well. However, as a genre the plantation tradition did not greatly increase in popularity until after the Civil War when the entire nation was healing her wounds. Local color regionalism was a predominant genre in many areas. In the South, this took the form of the plantation narrative. Devastated physically, financially and socially, the good old days as depicted in these works took the form of Southern ladies and gentlemen with contented slaves joyfully helping to run the plantation for the owners. Whether the story took place before the war with actual slaves or after the war when the freed slaves remained on the farm to assist the owners, the result was still the same: the whites continued in power and the blacks remained in a subordinate position. In these happily ever after types of stories, the blacks were content and the whites were able to recall a civilization that no longer existed in an idealized form. There were no beatings or economic concerns. Yet, the former slaves, now free blacks, were not given equal status and stereotypical racist attitudes developed as a result.
From its conception, the plantation genre integrated social commentary. John Kennedy, a white Northerner and the author of Swallow Barn, included a condemnation of the states’ rights and the secession debate in this first plantation tradition novel (Uhler 472, 473). By allusion, he contends that the United States would prevail if the South were to try to secede comparing this to the biblical account where Aaron’s rod became a serpent and devoured the magician’s serpents (Uhler 473). Further, adding intrigue to the premier work, “only in this work does he picture plantation life and the South” and then Kennedy wrote in other styles (Uhler 473). While this plantation work inadvertently reinforced slavery, the next major work in the genre, Woodcraft by William Gilmore Simms, was part of a series of Revolutionary War romances written as a defense of the Southern lifestyle (Ridgely 422). Instead of trying to debate with abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Simms chose “the positive course of presenting in a work of fiction and extended account of” the Southern culture including slavery (Ridgely 422). As a white regionalist, he understood the South, yet it was financially essential that some Northerners purchased his books (Ridgely 425). Recording, or perhaps rewriting, the environment of the plantation and specifically the relation of slaves to their masters as one of “mutual respect, outspokenness, and the concern of each for each other’s physical welfare” that it was not, he deliberately attempted to change the perception of slavery for the North (Ridgely 430). The broadcasting of stereotypical and dangerous opinions to perhaps unsuspecting readers became a characteristic of the genre.
The Civil War functioned as both an intermission and course alteration for the genre. The end of the war ended slavery, and yet the Reconstruction South struggled to adjust to the forced change. Bound by prejudice, suspicious of freed slaves, and longing for the good old days, plantation literature resurged. The wistful writings about the Old South enthralled Northerners and led to the development of the New South that suppressed blacks (Martin 18). Thomas Nelson Page who grew up on an antebellum plantation was perhaps the writer most important in the development of the illusion (Martin 20). A “booster” for the New South, Nelson sold the romantic vision later portrayed in movies like “Gone with the Wind” and responsible for the continuing abundance of Confederate flags waving in Southern states (Martin 20). Furthering the tradition of social commentary in plantation literature, Nelson desired to change the Northern opinion of blacks. Part of his agenda included promoting his Social Darwinist-like idea of blacks as inferior to whites (Bailey 113). As this image began to gain prominence, once again new writers with new agendas and tools emerged.
In addition to the change in purpose, a change in the sound occurred as well. Beginning with Thomas Dunn English in 1871, Negro dialect in the plantation genre developed (Moore 73). English’s poems are narrated by “an elderly servant whose heart and soul belong to the time ‘befo’ de war’ and through his eyes the readers sees everything as a bit glorified” typical of the plantation tradition (Moore 74). Since English only wrote a few works published in magazines, Irwin Russell is generally credited as the first making his Negro characters the main character (Moore 72). Following Russell’s example, Joel Chandler Harris continued with the “Uncle Remus” stories. The meager “accuracy of the dialect” written by the white writers was inconsequential as the effect on the northern white audience was substantial (Andrews 580). The depiction of slaves as illiterate and uneducated supported the opinion that they could not be whites equals and should not be treated as such. The language of inferiority then became a tool to further advocate separate but equal and white superiority.
With the dialect of the South firmly a part of the plantation tradition, the nature of the stories changed. While Simms and Page wrote of the glorious South with totally subservient slaves and blacks, Harris’s works occurring in the South centered around African folk-tales. Using the folk tale structure, Harris promoted Negro “masking” and white superiority to his Southern audience while an editor for the Atlanta Constitution (Andrews 580). His Negro storyteller “Uncle Remus played both sides” as both the victim but also sometimes the manipulator (Andrews 581). As the popularity of Harris’s tales increased promoting a negative image of African Americans, many African Americans realized that their hope for equality was slipping away.
Just as the plantation genre appeared to accomplishing its task allowing Page’s New South to rise in glory, African American author Charles Chesnutt joined with his own social agenda. Considered “the first great African American fiction writer”, Chesnutt became a leader using the plantation genre against itself to not only secure his own success but also further the cause of all African Americans (Martin 18). In contrast to the blacks portrayed earlier in the plantation tradition, his main character Julius was not a former house slave that had chosen to remain with his white former owners. Rather, he was a field worker who had experienced the brutality of slavery and now worked independently to provide his own living. This different image in the plantation tradition provided an example of a black entrepreneur of sorts. In another twist from Harris’s folktales, Chesnutt used conjure tales created from his imagination as opposed to reworked African folktales (Martin 18). While still using somewhat a distant content because of the illusion to witchcraft, his in work audience was different as well because Chesnutt used white Northerners John and Annie as Uncle Julius’s audience in his tales. Chesnutt understood his reader audience was mostly Northerners who had become romantically interested in the South (Martin 18). Beginning with “The Goophered Grapevine”, Chesnutt worked to transform the genre. In the end, he lost hope in his ability to bring about change through the plantation genre and abandoned the proposal. Chesnutt continued to write, but no longer attempted subtly to eradicate the misperceptions.
The final two major African American authors in the plantation tradition perfected the use of dialect in the poems, but also echoed disillusionment with the subversive methods of the genre. Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s plantation works on the surface play into much of the traditional ideals of the genre (Keeling 26). While Dunbar wrote poetry in both Standard English and dialect, it was his famous poem “We Wear the Mask” in Standard English which portrays the soul wrenching situation of African Americans at the turn of the century. If they chose not to mask themselves, they were at peril of white persecution. However, if they did wear the mask, they forced racist obeisance. Dunbar reportedly labeled his own dialect plantation writings as “the language of hated stereotypes” even though his dialogue was unmatched (Keeling 29). Corruthers, inspired to write in the plantation tradition by Dunbar’s success and out of monetary necessity, wrote a “blend of anger and accommodation, of aggression modulated by irreverent humor” overstepping the white establishments’ boundaries for the genre (Gaines 344). While Corrothers’ work was distinct in that they were set in a Northern location, they also brought attention to increasing concern of Northern whites (Gaines 347). Black Northern migration was inciting greater racism and neither solid African American citizens nor talented writers were able to end the prejudice. In the end, both Dunbar and Corrothers deserted the plantation tradition for Standard English writing.
Despite their best efforts to redirect the genre, the plantation continued to subjugate free blacks. African American authors chose to abandon persuasive attempts to enlighten whites through plantation literature. The past was gone, yet those that were attempting to keep the New South alive promoted ”black bashing” as they promoted progressively stronger racism (Okuda 217). Publishers and muckraking journalists promoted plantation works like Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman “with the intention of provoking racial hatred” and sensationalizing its horrific content (Okuda 218). While “the African American community made tireless efforts to counter this racist propaganda, black leaders and writers made sincere attempts to convince Northern whites that the majority of blacks were not criminals” without success (Okuda 221). Forced to accept the place of disenfranchised second-class citizens, African American authors turned to other styles of writing as their hope for a brighter future was shattered (Okuda 224). While African Americans had been freed from the physical bondage of the plantation system, they had not been freed from the racism that was intensified by the plantation tradition in literature. Chesnutt was right. Life was not fiction. Our nation remained unconverted.
Works Cited
Andrews, William L., et al., eds. Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York:Oxford, 1997. Print.
Bailey, Fred. “Thomas Nelson Page and the Patrician Cult of the Old South.” International Social Science Review 72.3/4 (1997): 110-21. Print.
"Charles W. Chesnutt Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 03 Mar. 2012.
Gaines, Kevin. “Assimilationist Minstrelsy as Racial Uplift Ideology: James D. Corrothers's Literary Quest for Black Leadership.” American Quarterly 45.3 (1993): 341-69. Print.
Keeling, John. “Paul Dunbar and the Mask of Dialect.”Southern Literary Journal 25.2 (1993): 24-38. Print.
Martin, Matthew. “The Two-faced New South: The Plantation Tales of Thomas Nelson Page and Charles W. Chesnutt.” Southern Literary Journal. 30.2 (1998): 17-36. Print.
Moore, Rayburn. “Thomas Dunn English, a Forgotten Contributor to the Development of Negro Dialect Verse in the 1870’s.” American Literature 33.1 (1961): 72-5. Print.
Okuda, Akiyo Ito. ““A Nation Is Born”: Thomas Dixon's Vision of White Nationhood and His Northern Supporters.” Journal of American Culture 32.3 (2009): 214-31. Print.
Ridgely, Joseph. “WOODCRAFT: Simms First Answer to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”American Literature 31.4 (1960): 421-33. Print.
Uhler, John. “Kennedy’s Novels and His Posthumous Works.”American Literature 3.4(1932): 471-9. Print.
Originally, the plantation tradition of literature was an attempt to idealize the plantation and slavery systems of the South. The genre traces its roots to Kennedy’s The Swallow Barn. Written in the 1830’s, contented slaves served noble masters and mistresses on a Southern plantation (Andrews 579). As an antithesis to books such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the slave narratives, these books provided an alternative to the domestic fiction of the North as well. However, as a genre the plantation tradition did not greatly increase in popularity until after the Civil War when the entire nation was healing her wounds. Local color regionalism was a predominant genre in many areas. In the South, this took the form of the plantation narrative. Devastated physically, financially and socially, the good old days as depicted in these works took the form of Southern ladies and gentlemen with contented slaves joyfully helping to run the plantation for the owners. Whether the story took place before the war with actual slaves or after the war when the freed slaves remained on the farm to assist the owners, the result was still the same: the whites continued in power and the blacks remained in a subordinate position. In these happily ever after types of stories, the blacks were content and the whites were able to recall a civilization that no longer existed in an idealized form. There were no beatings or economic concerns. Yet, the former slaves, now free blacks, were not given equal status and stereotypical racist attitudes developed as a result.
From its conception, the plantation genre integrated social commentary. John Kennedy, a white Northerner and the author of Swallow Barn, included a condemnation of the states’ rights and the secession debate in this first plantation tradition novel (Uhler 472, 473). By allusion, he contends that the United States would prevail if the South were to try to secede comparing this to the biblical account where Aaron’s rod became a serpent and devoured the magician’s serpents (Uhler 473). Further, adding intrigue to the premier work, “only in this work does he picture plantation life and the South” and then Kennedy wrote in other styles (Uhler 473). While this plantation work inadvertently reinforced slavery, the next major work in the genre, Woodcraft by William Gilmore Simms, was part of a series of Revolutionary War romances written as a defense of the Southern lifestyle (Ridgely 422). Instead of trying to debate with abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Simms chose “the positive course of presenting in a work of fiction and extended account of” the Southern culture including slavery (Ridgely 422). As a white regionalist, he understood the South, yet it was financially essential that some Northerners purchased his books (Ridgely 425). Recording, or perhaps rewriting, the environment of the plantation and specifically the relation of slaves to their masters as one of “mutual respect, outspokenness, and the concern of each for each other’s physical welfare” that it was not, he deliberately attempted to change the perception of slavery for the North (Ridgely 430). The broadcasting of stereotypical and dangerous opinions to perhaps unsuspecting readers became a characteristic of the genre.
The Civil War functioned as both an intermission and course alteration for the genre. The end of the war ended slavery, and yet the Reconstruction South struggled to adjust to the forced change. Bound by prejudice, suspicious of freed slaves, and longing for the good old days, plantation literature resurged. The wistful writings about the Old South enthralled Northerners and led to the development of the New South that suppressed blacks (Martin 18). Thomas Nelson Page who grew up on an antebellum plantation was perhaps the writer most important in the development of the illusion (Martin 20). A “booster” for the New South, Nelson sold the romantic vision later portrayed in movies like “Gone with the Wind” and responsible for the continuing abundance of Confederate flags waving in Southern states (Martin 20). Furthering the tradition of social commentary in plantation literature, Nelson desired to change the Northern opinion of blacks. Part of his agenda included promoting his Social Darwinist-like idea of blacks as inferior to whites (Bailey 113). As this image began to gain prominence, once again new writers with new agendas and tools emerged.
In addition to the change in purpose, a change in the sound occurred as well. Beginning with Thomas Dunn English in 1871, Negro dialect in the plantation genre developed (Moore 73). English’s poems are narrated by “an elderly servant whose heart and soul belong to the time ‘befo’ de war’ and through his eyes the readers sees everything as a bit glorified” typical of the plantation tradition (Moore 74). Since English only wrote a few works published in magazines, Irwin Russell is generally credited as the first making his Negro characters the main character (Moore 72). Following Russell’s example, Joel Chandler Harris continued with the “Uncle Remus” stories. The meager “accuracy of the dialect” written by the white writers was inconsequential as the effect on the northern white audience was substantial (Andrews 580). The depiction of slaves as illiterate and uneducated supported the opinion that they could not be whites equals and should not be treated as such. The language of inferiority then became a tool to further advocate separate but equal and white superiority.
With the dialect of the South firmly a part of the plantation tradition, the nature of the stories changed. While Simms and Page wrote of the glorious South with totally subservient slaves and blacks, Harris’s works occurring in the South centered around African folk-tales. Using the folk tale structure, Harris promoted Negro “masking” and white superiority to his Southern audience while an editor for the Atlanta Constitution (Andrews 580). His Negro storyteller “Uncle Remus played both sides” as both the victim but also sometimes the manipulator (Andrews 581). As the popularity of Harris’s tales increased promoting a negative image of African Americans, many African Americans realized that their hope for equality was slipping away.
Just as the plantation genre appeared to accomplishing its task allowing Page’s New South to rise in glory, African American author Charles Chesnutt joined with his own social agenda. Considered “the first great African American fiction writer”, Chesnutt became a leader using the plantation genre against itself to not only secure his own success but also further the cause of all African Americans (Martin 18). In contrast to the blacks portrayed earlier in the plantation tradition, his main character Julius was not a former house slave that had chosen to remain with his white former owners. Rather, he was a field worker who had experienced the brutality of slavery and now worked independently to provide his own living. This different image in the plantation tradition provided an example of a black entrepreneur of sorts. In another twist from Harris’s folktales, Chesnutt used conjure tales created from his imagination as opposed to reworked African folktales (Martin 18). While still using somewhat a distant content because of the illusion to witchcraft, his in work audience was different as well because Chesnutt used white Northerners John and Annie as Uncle Julius’s audience in his tales. Chesnutt understood his reader audience was mostly Northerners who had become romantically interested in the South (Martin 18). Beginning with “The Goophered Grapevine”, Chesnutt worked to transform the genre. In the end, he lost hope in his ability to bring about change through the plantation genre and abandoned the proposal. Chesnutt continued to write, but no longer attempted subtly to eradicate the misperceptions.
The final two major African American authors in the plantation tradition perfected the use of dialect in the poems, but also echoed disillusionment with the subversive methods of the genre. Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s plantation works on the surface play into much of the traditional ideals of the genre (Keeling 26). While Dunbar wrote poetry in both Standard English and dialect, it was his famous poem “We Wear the Mask” in Standard English which portrays the soul wrenching situation of African Americans at the turn of the century. If they chose not to mask themselves, they were at peril of white persecution. However, if they did wear the mask, they forced racist obeisance. Dunbar reportedly labeled his own dialect plantation writings as “the language of hated stereotypes” even though his dialogue was unmatched (Keeling 29). Corruthers, inspired to write in the plantation tradition by Dunbar’s success and out of monetary necessity, wrote a “blend of anger and accommodation, of aggression modulated by irreverent humor” overstepping the white establishments’ boundaries for the genre (Gaines 344). While Corrothers’ work was distinct in that they were set in a Northern location, they also brought attention to increasing concern of Northern whites (Gaines 347). Black Northern migration was inciting greater racism and neither solid African American citizens nor talented writers were able to end the prejudice. In the end, both Dunbar and Corrothers deserted the plantation tradition for Standard English writing.
Despite their best efforts to redirect the genre, the plantation continued to subjugate free blacks. African American authors chose to abandon persuasive attempts to enlighten whites through plantation literature. The past was gone, yet those that were attempting to keep the New South alive promoted ”black bashing” as they promoted progressively stronger racism (Okuda 217). Publishers and muckraking journalists promoted plantation works like Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman “with the intention of provoking racial hatred” and sensationalizing its horrific content (Okuda 218). While “the African American community made tireless efforts to counter this racist propaganda, black leaders and writers made sincere attempts to convince Northern whites that the majority of blacks were not criminals” without success (Okuda 221). Forced to accept the place of disenfranchised second-class citizens, African American authors turned to other styles of writing as their hope for a brighter future was shattered (Okuda 224). While African Americans had been freed from the physical bondage of the plantation system, they had not been freed from the racism that was intensified by the plantation tradition in literature. Chesnutt was right. Life was not fiction. Our nation remained unconverted.
Works Cited
Andrews, William L., et al., eds. Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York:Oxford, 1997. Print.
Bailey, Fred. “Thomas Nelson Page and the Patrician Cult of the Old South.” International Social Science Review 72.3/4 (1997): 110-21. Print.
"Charles W. Chesnutt Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 03 Mar. 2012.
Gaines, Kevin. “Assimilationist Minstrelsy as Racial Uplift Ideology: James D. Corrothers's Literary Quest for Black Leadership.” American Quarterly 45.3 (1993): 341-69. Print.
Keeling, John. “Paul Dunbar and the Mask of Dialect.”Southern Literary Journal 25.2 (1993): 24-38. Print.
Martin, Matthew. “The Two-faced New South: The Plantation Tales of Thomas Nelson Page and Charles W. Chesnutt.” Southern Literary Journal. 30.2 (1998): 17-36. Print.
Moore, Rayburn. “Thomas Dunn English, a Forgotten Contributor to the Development of Negro Dialect Verse in the 1870’s.” American Literature 33.1 (1961): 72-5. Print.
Okuda, Akiyo Ito. ““A Nation Is Born”: Thomas Dixon's Vision of White Nationhood and His Northern Supporters.” Journal of American Culture 32.3 (2009): 214-31. Print.
Ridgely, Joseph. “WOODCRAFT: Simms First Answer to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”American Literature 31.4 (1960): 421-33. Print.
Uhler, John. “Kennedy’s Novels and His Posthumous Works.”American Literature 3.4(1932): 471-9. Print.