Karl Livingston
Professor Richards
English 357
21 September 2010
On Valerie Smith’s “Form and Ideology in Three Slave Narratives”
Valerie Smith in her critical essay “Form and Ideology in Three Slave Narratives,” asserts that Harriet Jacobs seized authority over her own literary work, as opposed to fully being subject to sentimentalism, an abolitionist agenda, or the formulaic constructions of male slave narratives, in order to show her unique experience as a black woman. Smith first addresses the construction of the narrative and the presence of, “the ordering influence of a white…editor” (223). She argues that, “Harriet Jacobs’s freedom to reconstruct her life was limited by a genre that suppressed subjective experience in favor of abolitionist polemics” (225). The presence of white authentication and editing not only skewed and controlled the experiences in the story to appeal to a white, middle class audience, but also prescribed to a narrative form that was overly sentimental and thus oftentimes unbelievable. Smith uses the example of Lydia Maria Child’s “Introduction By the Editor” to show how this white presence acts as, “the voice of form and convention in the narrative--the one who revised, condensed, and ordered the manuscript” (233). Child’s editing presence within the text of Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl clearly highlights a repetitiveness of the slave narrative in its form, tone, and content. Along with this, the focus on sentimentality, a common narrative rhetorical device, was geared toward a white female audience with the intent of strategically eliciting their sympathy through the constructions of popular fiction. Though Smith admits that Jacobs’s narrative is highly stylized to reflect a white audience and a white editor, her argument relies upon Jacobs’s ability to prevail over these trite structures. Smith lists numerous examples where Jacobs’s literary voice triumphs, yet she notably concentrates on the ellipses and ironies of Jacobs’s confinement. Smith comments on the many places within the narrative that Jacobs is in hiding or imprisoned. Concentrating on the ambiguity of the “loophole of retreat,” or the crawl space where Jacobs lived for seven years, Smith notes that this space could accrue a multitude of meanings: “a place of withdrawal,” “an avenue of escape,” “a place of confinement,” or even an independence from her master (226). The numerous examples of her concealment display Jacobs’s power of choice in deciding the means to attain freedom. Smith says, “Repeatedly she [Jacobs] escapes overwhelming persecutions only by choosing her own space of confinement: the stigma of unwed motherhood over sexual submission to her master; concealment in one friend’s home…and her grandmother’s garret over her own and her children’s enslavement” (226). This illustration aptly expresses Jacobs’s unique experiences as a female slave as well as the empowerment of choice within both the content and structure of the narrative.
Smith’s most recognizable strength involves her use of examples from Jacobs’s text. The support for Smith’s arguments is lifted right out of descriptions, events and discourses within Jacobs’s book. The analysis of Child’s introduction is a particularly thorough example. Smith goes through two of the four paragraphs written by Childs, and effectively breaks them down to outline the argument that Childs introduction was written to attach a sense of decorum to the main text as well as to validate the author. Smith makes an assertion, finds textual evidence, and then explains that evidence so that her point is clear. Another way that Smith’s argument is strengthened involves her use of background history. Adding context to any contention, greatly improves the reasoning behind the point, and for a truthful slave account of the 1800’s, this framework is even more necessary. An example of this can be found where Smith describes some of the cultural restraints placed on women during the 1900’s. She says, “Not only were they [women] denied access to the professions, civic responsibilities, and higher education, but also their secular and religious instruction encouraged them from childhood to adopt the ‘feminine’, passive virtues of ‘submissiveness , modesty, selflessness’”(227). This brief look into the cultural norms concerning women of the 19th century, allows for a greater contextual understanding of the text as well as Smith’s assertions.
The problems that arise within Smith’s critique create issues concerning comprehension. Overall, there seems to be a lack of organization that results from tackling too much in one argument. Though her points are definitely intelligible, Smith will double back and add examples or emphasis long after a point has been made. She keeps fluctuating between her discussion of the slave narrative form and then the content of the text, yet when she does this she oftentimes drops part of an argument just to be picked up later in the critique. For instance, the discussion of the triangulation of the narrator, text, and editor is seen on page 223. Smith says, “ the stories [slave narratives] are shaped according to the requirement of the abolitionists who published them and provided them with readers” (223). After she finishes her discussion of the editor’s role within the slave narrative, Smith moves on to discuss topics such as the role of crawl spaces, sentimentalism, and “cultural definitions of masculinity” (229). Yet it is not until page 232, that a critical examination of Jacobs’s own editor pops up. Jumping from page to page to outline a summary is not a reader’s idea of an organized critique. The reasoning behind her seeming lack of organization may be explained by the fact that she is attempting to make a multitude of assertions within one, fairly short critique. Though the title of the article implies that Smith is simply delving into the form and ideology of Jacobs’s narrative (presumably along with two other slave narratives), she alludes to so much more--authentication, race, gender, class, formulaic slave narratives, authorial intent, editorial intent, audience, historical context, sentimentality, and more. This myriad of themes that Smith analyzes, muddles her overarching argument and leaves the reader without a clear sense of a main point or even a couple of main points. Thus, though there are a lot of examples and clear contextual support to Smith’s critique, the message often becomes too dense and obscure to navigate.