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The Reception of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
HOUŠKOVÁ, Barbora
The aim of this thesis is to explore the problematics of the reception of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Though this autobiography, first published at the beginning of 1861, is today known as one of the most major works of the genre of slave narratives, its authenticity and authorship have been questioned and denied for several decades, and only by the end of the 20th century has the narrative been recognized as a valuable and truthful personal testimony of what slavery meant for African American women in antebellum America. This thesis then focuses on both the contemporary reception, mainly with regard to the historical circumstances of abolitionism and the upcoming Civil War, and a more recent one, predominantly on 20th-century criticism and the subsequent canonization of the narrative. The key factor of this analysis will be the multiple discrimination which affected the life and work of Harriet Jacobs as a sexually abused woman of African American descent.
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The African-American Slave Narrative in Context: Frederick Douglass and Harriet Ann Jacobs
Chýlková, Jana ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
in English The aim of this MA thesis is to bring new perspectives on the genre of the African-American slave narrative. Therefore, its wider historical, socio-political and gender contexts are considered and the circumstances surrounding its development and current criticism are briefly outlined. The point of departure is a discussion of definitions that vary among the scholars who select different criteria for the subject of definition. The existing diversity of the texts and voices is discussed in connection to Moses Grandy's Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America. Grandy's narrative, an account of the maritime slave life, is analyzed. Its traditional, uniform narrative structures are juxtaposed with passages where some aspects of his masculine identity, problematized by the institution of slavery, can be traced. Ultimately, the thesis attempts to show that while the conventionalized framework pre-defining the narrative outline and themes is delineated by James Olney, any generally recognized definition of the genre does not exist. As a result of that conclusion, the genre is defined in the scope of this thesis. After the major characteristics of the genre are discussed and the definition of the African- American slave narrative is put forward, more...
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