With his skill he hopes to get better pay and better treatment. 21, Spring 1990, pp. In this little speech she bypasses the "retrick" of fancy education as well as any moralizing that might have impeded her story. Dye tries to thwart the move by bringing up a bogus debt, but Joe pays him anyway and moves to the ranch with Jane and his daughters Ella and Clara. Later, when Tee Bob commits suicide, Jimmy tries to ingratiate himself with Raynard and Samson by blaming Mary. It was this aunt who took care of laundry and cooking for the family, even though she had to crawl to perform her chores. The fictional massacre described by Miss Jane in the novel is no worse than many real attacks reported in the South in the decades following the war. The intoxication of liberation is replaced by the sobriety of a slave's tenuous existence when she hides in a thicket, watching as fellow slaves are massacred by former members of the slave patrols and former Confederate soldiers. ... personal as opposed to real property. In trying to remedy this, she finds herself embroiled in another boundary crossing that ends tragically. When Ned urges her to leave for Kansas with him, he observes, "You ain't married to this place." 3, No. The distinctions between black and white do not always depend on skin color but on blood—as in the case of Mary Agnes—and class standing. While many people involved with the code still participate in its upkeep, there are a few renegades like Tee Bob. The social code of the South was a set of rules passed down from father to son from long ago. His stature in the family enables him to take charge during the chaos following Tee Bob's suicide. The story of Miss Jane Pittman is a supposed interview with a woman who is 110 years old. revival during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Well, it ain't coming to meet you. While she is no longer a slave, her freedom is tenuous at best, and her descriptions of heading north contain perils similar to those alluded to in many slave narratives. Gaines's home state of Louisiana became famous during the 1960s for two events: the New Orleans school integration crisis and the Bogalusa movement. Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma newspaper) 1933 AGED RESIDENT OF BAUM BURIED Services held at Lone Cedar Cemetery for Mrs. A. G. (Mary Jane Gross Francis)Pittman, Aged 89. They didn't even care what I was." It opens with an encounter between the ostensible "editor" of the novel, a high school history teacher, and Miss Jane Pittman, a woman who is about 110 years old. By demanding to be called not only by a new name but also by the title "Miss," Jane demands respect and recognition of an existence apart from that of a slave.…. Jane, a representative of the freed slave, is now able to claim her rightful status as an equal person. A. Botkin, editor, Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery, University of Chicago Press, 1945. Mary Ellen Doyle, "Ernest J. Gaines: An Annotated Bibliography, 1956-1988," Black American Literature Forum, Vol. However, he is a harsh follower of the Southern moral code governing black and white relations. The Hunter is a black man Jane and Ned meet in their first week on the road. She loses her position in the church, but she is compensated for this loss by the great joy she experiences as a baseball fan. Jane's retelling is recorded in her own rural black dialect, in this instance the language A large woman known as Big Laura takes charge of the freed slaves who have struck out for the north. It exemplifies the author's concerns with the relationship between language, identity, and narrative structure. She moves to join a greater historical dimension that this autobiography cannot contain: "Me and Robert looked at each other there a long time, then I went by him." The school for black children that Ned was killed over later exists at the Samson plantation, and eventually Jimmy goes to college. No such thing as colored troops, colored politicians, or a colored teacher anywhere near the place.… You had to give Colonel Dye's name if the secret group stopped you on the road. Neither Jane nor Ned's family can seek justice because the legal system is controlled by white hate groups. Consequently, Jimmy gains nothing but humiliation as he confesses his part in the matter to the sheriff. By the time Mr. Walker says Gaines is best compared to writers such as Charles Dickens and W.E.B. Gaines made use of this text in creating an authentic speech pattern for Miss Jane and other characters in her autobiography. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. look with amazement. Samson never denies the child is his, because Timmy looks and acts more like his father than Samson's legitimate son, Tee Bob. conservative nature of the black church community, and adamantly resists the message Jimmy is trying to bring to the community. When Colonel Dye takes over the plantation, Jane comments, "It was slavery again, all right." Melvin Maddocks, "Root and Branch," in Time, May 10, 1971, pp. If we reached the North, we didn't know if we was go'n stay together or separate. The term exodus, for example, is used to refer to black migration: "Droves after droves … was leaving. 92-96. 187-94. As she continues to divulge the details of her history, she makes larger American history a living and present process. But the geographic boundaries of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman also symbolize the novel's interest in community. This use of dialect brings a realism to both the characterization of Jane and the Louisiana setting of the book. • He gives him the position of companion and stable hand to his younger brother Tee Bob. Jane and her husband, Joe Pittman, eventually leave his plantation, but only after paying the Colonel money he says he spent to get the Klan away from Joe. This time it is Jimmy Aaron, and the community's desperation is reflected in Jane's explanation of why Jimmy was chosen: "People's always looking for somebody to come lead them.… Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.… Why did we pick him? Characters Most parents of white students at the two schools chosen for integration pulled their children out; those who did not were taunted and terrorized by anti-integration neighbors. She has witnessed and been a part of the history of black America since the end of the Civil War. Having failed to make much progress toward Ohio, the newly freed Jane ends up at Mr. Valerie Melissa Babb, Ernest Gaines, Twayne, 1991. Consistently, whether recalling historical events, analyzing biblical parables, or recounting the doings of legendary figures, Jane's insights join the folk and the mythic in a unique historic vision. A very dark "Singalee" woman who is "queen" of the fields at the Samson plantation. What Miss Rosa Parks did, everybody wanted to do. She returns "home" because, in his view, true liberation and the progress it engenders are not an abstract, such as the notion of "freedom," or a spatial entity, such as "the North," but rather a spiritual entity, deeply rooted in a person's character, dignity, and knowledge of his or her history and place. Tired and exhausted, Jane and Ned soon settle on a plantation owned by Mr. The fight to gain one's freedom often consists of a series of small steps. In other words, she does not suggest that her past led in any direct way to her present state. At the same time, Jane grants Rosa Parks her full individuality and recognizes that the personal pain she suffered was not reduced by the symbolic value of her act. She recalls her life and that of others with a clarity that fosters an appreciation of the importance of her people's history to American culture. Despite Timmy's privileges, "white trash" still want to be called "mister" by anyone with an ounce of black blood. Addison Gayle, Jr., "The Way of the New World Part II," in his The Way of the New World: The Black Novel in America, Doubleday, 1975, pp. These characters are "caught in the movement of the changing times, they must make choices, the results often unpredictable, the consequences sometimes tragic." When she refuses him, he beats her—thus becoming just like the society who says he should not love her. As a result, Gaines's work is "open to love and to interpretation.". In Jane's portrait Frederick Douglass is not the great orator, abstracted and removed from his cultural roots. However, he talks endlessly about killing people. As Jane describes the community in this portion of her narrative, it consists of people searching for dignity even if they must settle for the vicarious esteem derived from the exploits of black athletes. A collection of interviews with ex-slaves conducted by the Work Projects Administration in the 1930s and 1940s. Both remain collected during the massacre, and Jane has the presence of mind to hide Ned, while he has the presence of mind to remain quiet. Before the Civil War, most free people of color were Creole. At first the people's hope rests in Ned, but the certainty of Ned's martyrdom is expressed through Jane's statement "Both of us knowed that day was coming. Consequently, he pursues Mary Agnes LeFabre, a woman he is struck with although she is a mulatto. Bone is replaced by the Colonel. Consequently, Mr. Jane Pittman was a real person. When he is about seventeen, Ned becomes an organizer for a group that encourages blacks to leave the South and helps them settle in the North. Lee Papa, "'His Feet on Your Neck': The New Religion in the Works of Ernest J. Gaines," in African American review, Vol. Gaines's novel functions as an autobiography in so far as it provides a first-person account of the life of a particular person. she had nothing at all to do with the civil rights movement. She carries her baby girl, pulls a little boy named Ned along by the hand, and still carries the most supplies of anyone. Jerry H. Bryant, "From Death to Life: The Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines," in the Iowa Review, Vol. A spiritual woman, she is not awed by religious conventions. This book begins in the early 1940s, just after the birth of Jimmy Aaron. Jimmy's murder serves as a catalyst. They live well on the Clyde ranch for seven or eight years until Jane begins to dream of his death. In describing sharecropping, Jane reveals In the following essay Johnson, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, examines how The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman works as historical fiction and how Gaines makes a single character work both as an individual and as a historical symbol. She was the wife of JOSEPH HENRY PITTMAN, daughter of Rev. But in Jane's story, this framework disintegrates in Book II after Colonel Dye takes over Mr. But King couldn't do a thing before Miss Rosa Parks refused to give that white man her [bus] seat.". Although these freedmen and freedwomen often performed the same functions they had before emancipation—plowing fields, picking cotton, cooking meals, caring for white children—they were paid for their work (in land, harvest, or wages) and were expected to pay for their food and shelter. The fourth and last book of her autobiography, "The Quarters," is not so much a record of the past as a blueprint for the future. In fact, the prospect of leaving home to start a new life was often too much for former slaves. John Lowe, editor, Conversations with Ernest J. Gaines, University Press of Mississippi, 1995. A woman from the plantation quarters who sells smalls items such as seeds and perfume around the parish. Inspired by African Americans' gains in civil rights in the 1960s, Gaines sought to relate the long, hard history of oppression that led to these triumphs. Jane observes that Parks is, to a certain extent, simply a representative of a group, having done what "everybody wanted to do." While Robert Samson provides him with money to travel, he won't protect him from white men like Tom Joe. One such person is Tom Joe, the white overseer on the plantation. Her recalling the series of teachers employed to instruct the black children of her plantation is an example. The systematic debasement of slavery was designed in part to make certain that no slave was prepared for the advent of freedom; therefore, considerations of future action were few because emancipation was a remote ideal rather than a reality. They might have tried, but, like Jane, never made it as far as the county line. Robert Samson intercepts them and tells them that Jimmy has been shot dead. Today: Several federal Civil Rights Acts allow persons unfairly treated due to color, sex, or creed full recourse of the law. He also tries to spread the word about black politics—specifically the teachings of black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, whose name he has taken as his own. Civil rights were still in the forefront of many African Americans' minds in 1971. Robinson, who in 1947 became the first African American to play major league baseball, appears in the novel without much fanfare when Jane comments on her passion for listening to baseball games. fifty cents a day. Though her account unfolds after emancipation, Jane's recall fumishes a possible likeness of this often-absent chapter in slave literature. Miss Jane Pittman is the focus of the narrative, for she has witnessed one hundred years of life in Louisiana, from slavery to the civil rights movement. Jane •abstain, appertain, arcane, arraign, ascertain, attain, Bahrain, bane, blain, brain, Braine, Cain, Caine, campaign, cane, chain, cham…, Emma He and Jane argue over letting Jimmy speak. 24, No. Themes it as the reincarnation of slavery. In the fifth chapter, Beavers contends that Gaines reenvisions William Faulkner's alienated South by promoting storytelling as a power for social rejuvenation and as a means to reinforce community. Having found his voice, his 1967 novel, Of Love and Dust, brought him recognition. Not believing in the church, the two never officially marry. Whether a man builds dirt levees or dams of concrete, it amounts to the same thing—a futile attempt to control the power of nature. Jane's autobiography is an American history amplified by the many strains of African-American culture that conventional histories of the United States may have muted. Vivian is Ned's supportive wife. 1, January, 1992, pp. During the one hundred years portrayed in the novel, however, most Cajuns were poorer and less powerful than other white Louisiana residents. Since Jane and many of her neighbors are illiterate, Jimmy writes letters for them. Bone's plantation. Soon members of Bogalusa's African American population, many of whom were World War II or Korean War veterans, formed an armed self-defense group to protect themselves from the KKK threat because local police would not. We had never thought about nothing like that, because we had never thought we was go'n ever be free. Shortly after, Joe begins to consider leaving the plantation to break horses. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). When Jane speaks of the flood of 1927, it provides one of her few moments of obvious sermonizing. He is ashamed of his background as "white trash"—a distinction given to middle-class whites who have come to money late by working land. So while men of Robert Samson's generation accepted it as their heritage, many of their sons had to come to terms with the reality of a changing world. For a short time, conditions improve slightly for Jane and the other slaves, but quickly worsen as economic instability and racist organizations come to dominate the South. He treats his wage earners decently and slowly begins to give land to sharecroppers—although he favors the white Cajuns and mulatto Creoles when doing so. She simply talks and talks and talks her life to the recorder—Gaines. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans. In other words, worldchanging events like Lincoln's Proclamation are not as significant to her story as are acts such as her renaming, which occurred because of her encounter with Mr. Brown. 2, December, 1995, pp. And like Ned before him, Jimmy seeks to vanquish racial injustice through peaceful protests modeled after those of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ned and Jimmy are descendants of characters found in Gaines's earlier fiction: Copper Laurent in Bloodline, who in spite of his biracial heritage attempts to reclaim his family legacy; Jackson Bradley in Catherine Carmier, who through loving the Creole Catherine seeks to move outside the boundaries set for him by his society; and Marcus in Of Love and Dust, who wants to be more than "just a slave." He also reads the comics and sports sections of the newspaper out loud to Jane. She continues to perform field work for Colonel Dye through Reconstruction, a period of about twelve years following the Civil War. However, all the men, including Joe, chase after it, and in the process, Joe is killed. Lilly, unfortunately, seems to be more concerned with the outward appearances of her charges than with their inward edification, and Jane uses her to illustrate the belief that education must be utilitarian and relevant to be successful. That is, she says, he "claims and revels in the rich heritage" and customs of the Southern blacks of Louisiana. "Timmy was nigger," as Jane tells it, but everybody knew he was Robert Samson's son. 12 Jan. 2021 . He carries these in honor of his mother and follows Jane North. Instead she frees the horse, setting in motion the events that lead to his death. Her final moment in the narrative represents this one hundred-year period as a victorious slow march to freedom. When she says, "So this is freedom?" I am what I am today because of them." The soldier' s altering a label of slavery reveals a new world of control to her, one in which the power of the master, in this case manifested through naming, is not final. Gaines casts it as a simple act of personal dignity that commands respect, and the very simplicity of its nature seems to guarantee its success. The most comprehensive annotated bibliography at the time of its publication. In Louisiana, African American political action was especially effective in the decade from 1867 to 1877. FoundationINTERVIEWS 2,829 views. She relates stories of the people of the quarters, and larger historic and current events recede from prominence and assume the place of backdrops. She discerns its mythic nature, viewing its accounts as attempts to explain natural phenomena, the origin of humankind, traditions, and rituals. Miss Jane reminds us that the past is never a distant memory for Ernest Gaines but is instead a constant influence on the present and future. Keith E. Byerman, "A 'Slow-to-Anger' People: The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman as Historical Fiction," in Critical Reflections on the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines, edited by David C. Estes, University of Georgia Press, 1994, pp. Jane's instincts for survival are hard earned. Instead, "he simply watches, a patient artist, a patient man, and it happens for him" in the final moment when Jane walks past Robert. If I heard of a place where I could live better, where Ned could get a better learning, I would go there to live. A work of historical fiction, the Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman takes place in rural Louisiana. However, she decides to give up her class advantages and bring her education to a plantation school house. To many former slaves, however, these differences seemed insignificant. Jimmy and his group determine to have a young mulatto girl arrested in the nearby city of Bayonne. WILBURN G. and SARAH ANN COX GOSNELL, both buried Cross Plains Baptist Church Cemetery. Refer to each style’s convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Jane, who is now well over one hundred years old, and several others from Samson start toward Bayonne to join the demonstration. But I liked baseball so much they had to take it from me and give it to Emma." Bone gives the plantation back to Colonel Eugene I. Dye, but not before warning his workers that they should no longer count on the "Yankees" to care about their situation. In the introduction, the editor admits that "even though I have used only Miss Jane's voice throughout the narrative, there were times when others carried the story for her." North in search of her narration is the author toward Jane than continue to Ohio is an act of rather., passing laws against segregation did not happen immediately now without a.! These groups prevent the full implementation of Reconstruction, a name comes to symbolize: the inheritance of life... 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