Epistolary

An Epistolary is literature in the form of a series of letters. This structure can be observed in Alice Walker's The Color Purple. The novel begins with Celie's letters to God. Later, her letters are to her sister, Nettie. Because Celie's father warned her that she can only talk to God about her rape and other fears, Celie uses the letters as a means of confession and catharsis. The letters are Celie's way of writing for survival, as Fanny Fern recommends in "Folly As It Flies." The letters provide Celie with a way to channel her pain and fear into writing. By writing letters to God, Celie is seeking comfort, and asking for his judgement.
The letters are also Celie's motivation to learn how to read and write. Before Nettie leaves, they promise to keep in touch with eachother by writing letters. Nettie is able to teach Celie some of what she has learned through her formal education. After Nettie leaves, Celie continues to educate herself in preparation of Nettie's correspondence. In this way, the letters inspire Celie's continuous education and development.
The letters are made up of parables. Celie's stories include religious and moral lessons, which include forgiveness and grace. The letters also document Celie's religious conversion from Christianity to a new sort of Pagan ideology.

-Elyse Rogers

The Queen Honeybee

The Queen Honeybee

"The Queen Honeybee" is a nickname for Shug Avery in Alice Walker's The Color Purple. The nickname shows up on an advetisement for her performance at the Lucky Star. The name is a sign of affection, and the word honey suggests that she is sweet. However, honeybees are known to have a stinger. The honeybee is a metaphor for duality of Shug's personality. She acts sweet, but Shug is shown to have bite to her personality. The queen bee's function in the hive is to reproduce. This is a comparison between the queen bee's association with fertility and Shug's stong sex drive. The honeybee is also a symbol of nature, and this supports Shug's religious ideology. Shug finds god in nature, rather than church. If god is considered "King," then Shug being called "Queen" suggests the goddess of nature.

-Elyse Rogers

cacoethes scribiendi

- "manic writing" was the topic of Catharine Sedgwick's essay
in 1835. It is also a state that Jo gets in when she is in her garret. While writing she
wears a pennefore and hat with a red bow. the bows location on the hat indicates her
writing mode and mood, one of which is a fury of idea and creativity or "cacoethes
scribiendi". the garret is a place where her ideas are free to manicly escape onto paper
without interruption.

Layla Bozek

Feminine power is not coercive, but persuasive.

This passage is found in Sarah Josepha Hale’s book of Manners. It represents Hale’s opinion that women should not participate directly in voting or the administrative qualities of government. Hale determines that this responsibility is to be taken up by men only. She defends this position, saying that it is inappropriate for a woman to compete with her husband or son in a public sphere. Rather, in pursuing her duty in the home, in her marriage, and in her responsibility in child rearing she will have a persuasive influence on the masculine duties of law and government. Hale advises women to cultivate virtue, knowledge, and accomplishments. This will influence and aid men in their work, as they align themselves with God’s virtues, and in so doing she will be the “glory of the man.”

Pickwick Club

A secret society that the March sisters create and name after a Charles Dicken's novel. The girls meet in the garret to contribute short stories, articles and poetry to their newspaper, the "The Pickwick Portfolio." At one of the meetings after the sisters agree to invite Laurie to be a member of their club he bursts out of his hiding spot in the closet, but promises to be a good member. The P.C. becomes a manifestation of the girl's immense creativity and imagination. It also showcases Jo's literary aspirations as the P.C.'s editor, but she is not oppressed by society's gender expectations in the club because she is able to play the role of Augustus Snodgrass. Much like the domestic space of the Marches' home, the P.C. opens its doors to Laurie and he is invited into the secret space of the sisters.

Jennifer Truong

Bildungsroman

Bildungsroman is a novelistic coming of age story that follows the psychological, spiritual, and social growth of a protagonist from his/her childhood to adulthood. The main premise of such a story is to illustrate one's journey towards maturity and then to emphasize the moment of maturity itself. In this sense, Little Women is thus a bildungsroman, particularly as it traces Jo's psychological, spiritual, and social development throughout the novel from a tomboyish girl to a new age woman who embodies both conservative and progressive ideals of womanhood. As Jo's bildungsroman unfolds, she faces battles between herself and society to arrive at a point of definition by the end of the novel. Seen as both a progressive woman through her redefinition of marriage in the choice of marrying Professor Bhaer instead of prince charming Laurie and as an eventual conformist who annihilates her individuality by marrying at all, Jo's bildungsroman emphasizes a hybrid of conservative and progressive womanhood to put forth a more practical view of transcendentalism.

-Jennifer Ngoc-Minh Pham aka JUST JENNY! =)

Voyeurism in "Incidents"

Both Mr. and Mrs. Flint take on voyeuristic rols in their treatment of Linda. Mr. Flint harrasses and spies on Linda constantly as she says "his footsteps dogged" her and he engages in a visual and verbal rape of her as he spies on her and also repeats that she is his property. His goal is to eliminate any innocence she may have, and make her his sexual slave, a victim of his lust. He threatens her with violence against her and her children just to satisfy his sexual lust. Mrs. Flint is odd in her behavior. She is threated by Linda's sexuality and fears her husband's wandering eye. Yet instead of watching him, she watches Linda, even whispering in her ear, as Linda sleeps,strange, inappropriate intimacies. She takes on the role of her lacivious husband to catch Linda in a lie, but becomes a voyeur herself.

Amber Bissell

The Female Body in "Incidents"

Dr. Flint lusts over his slave, Linda, and repeatedly attempts to coerce her into a sexual relationship. The control of her body is used as a threat against her, as she fears a rape, fears that her only control over Flint, her body, will be taken away. Dr. Flint verbally rapes her by saying he has control over her as he is her master and that he will sell her children and kill her if she does not submit, if she does not become his sexual slave. Linda then uses her own womb as a weapon or a defense mechanism as she engages in sexual relationship with Mr. Sands and becomes pregnant. She takes control of her body and denies Dr. Flint her virginity and sexuality. She uses her pregnancy as a method of escape, and frees herself from sexual slavery by using her sexual wiles.

Amber Bissell

Objective Correlative

In regards to "incidents in the life of a slave girl," the objective correlative for the situation of slavery is Linda Brent's imprisonment in her grandmother's attic. The restriction to her physical body reflects her emotional state of being in being trapped in the physical and mental oppression of slavery. Her seven years in the attic was a physically and mentally damaging situation, in which her escape from slavery actually in a sense crippled her. She was entrapped, enslaved, concealed, and degraded. The darkness of slavery was actually reflected in the physical domain of her attic prison. The oppression thar Linda suffered at the hands of Dr. Flint was only furthered in 3x7x9 space that she barely survived. The attic provided only subhuman conditions, just as slavery treated her as a subhuman.

Amber Bissell

christmas festivities

In the chapter "christmas festivities," jacobs states that christmas is a holidy for "both with white and colored people" (119). It seems to suggest that christianity is universal, not separated or segregated based on color of skin, and it also seems that religion plays a central role in the lives of white and colored people, which religion is one connection that ties them together regardless of material or realistic differences. Also in one passage when Benny argues that Santa Claus was the one that bought him the new clothes, not his mother, Linda's reaction shows her yearning to reunite to her children, desperation of her current condition, and her sense of the result for the absence of motherhood.

Maggie Liu.

Trip to England

In the trip to England, Linda was exposed to an environment that she had never experienced before. There was significantly less racism there than even in the North. When she returned home she realized that the North wasn't exactly the place she has expected it to be. It still was harboring racist sentiments. England showed Linda a different type of person and a different way to live. It made her life in the North not seem like the best thing that she ever could've had. At the same time, Linda was blessed because she was able to see that there are places in the world that are free of racism and where color doesn't matter. It was important for her to see that and to experience that world.


Rebecca Flick

True Christianity

A recurring theme in Incidents of a Slave Girl is Christianity. We see many incidents throughout the book where Whites proclaim themselves Supreme Christians. In chapter 13 The Rev.(a white man) states, "Hearken, ye servants! Give strict heed unto my words. You are rebellious sinners. Your hearts are filled with all manner evil"(68-69). The ultimate Master, in the eyes of whites, is Christ. Their attendance in the house of the Lord rids their sins and justifies their acts of cruelty; a slaveholder who buys and sells slaves and flogs them to death is forgiven for it is the will of God that places slavery in the world and it is the will of God that places the responsibility of slaves' lives in the hands of Whites. If it were not for the good-hearted white man and his reasoning that slaves need religious instructions their evil and wicked ways would never be forgiven. It is evident that those who exercise true Christianity, true common sense, and true courage are the slaves. A symbol of true Christianity is Aunt Marthy, Linda's grandmother. It is her good-willed natured, her faithful service to both her Masters and friends and family and perseverance that characterizes her as an individual who sacrifices herself for those she loves.

Super Mom

In the reading “Folly as it flies” Fanny Fern expresses her worry about women’s health issues because of their selfish dedication to work “The more she can’t work, the more she will try to, till she drops in her tracks, unless, catching sight of her prospective coffin, she stops in time”(73). Ignoring their health state women tend to keep on with their daily complex routine of life because their only job is to keep the house and everyone in it in order. They need to keep living up to the typical image of an ideal woman that can handle the duties of a mother and a wife and a respectable in society in order to feel that they are doing their role in life properly. Because of this mentality they tend to keep on working disregarding any inconvenient health state and if not careful, end up harming themselves greatly to the point of death.

Zamara Jimenez

Dr. Flint - The Terminator?

This might sound a little goofy but did the character of Dr. Flint in Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet S. Jacobs remind anyone else of the Terminator?

I guess it was his relentless pursuit of Linda that really brought the connection home to me. He just would not stop going after her no matter how long it took. His search dragged on for years with him acting as an even more insane version of Capt. Ahab.

There are other incidents, such as when Jacobs writes, "Dr. Flint and his family repeatedly tried to coax and bribe my children to tell something they had heard about me", that really hammer home this notion of him being not just a representation of the callous slaveowner but of the very force of enslavement itself (117). He does not seem to tire of the chase and will resort to any lengths, trickery or bribery for example, to retrieve what he feels is his property and what we all know is the life and liberty of a human being.

So I guess my comparison to the Terminator isn't far off because, to me, Dr. Flint is a figure of cold, almost mechanical cruelty. Sure, he's able to wear the skin of a man in the sense that we often see him act kindly in the story but deep down we can see the gears of corruption and greed clicking away below the surface and we know that all his kind words are only to benefit his own sense of entitlement and self-worth and to allow him to get what he wants.

- Jozef Helms.

Spinster

Spinsters are women who remain unmarried. While some women may choose the life of a spinster, some women are left into this position due to family circumstances and having past the common age of marriage for the time period. Any number of circumstances can be attributed to the status including scandal, inability to produce a dowry, sickness, or devotion to family. Fanny Fern in her writings indicates that remaining a spinster is not a horrid fate, as write Sarah Josepha Hale would believe, and that woman do have the choice to remain unmarried. Famous writer Louisa May Alcott never married and died a spinster. The term is one which is now considered sexist in terms of its negative connotation, especially when compared with its gender counterpart bachelor.

Tyson Ramirez

Farm Horse or a Fancy Horse

This particular line comes from the beginning of Fanny Fern’s, Folly As It Flies. While having a discussion with a man, Fern begins to explain the unreasonable demands that men make of women. She achieves this point by comparing how men select a wife to how they would select a horse. Fern states that a man could choose a farm horse which is less aesthetically pleasing, yet wholly functional, or he could choose an ornamental horse which is beautiful, but ill-conceived for hard labor. This metaphor shows that a man should not expect a picturesque trophy wife to be as able at hard work, just as he would never expect an ornamental horse to serve him by plowing fields. The use of animals is also done to compare how men are more readily able to understand a spouse as property rather than humans, a tone which is found throughout the piece.

Tyson Ramirez

Midterm

I'm going to chose "Incidents in the life of a slave girl" for my essay portion of the
midterm. And take a in depth look @ how sex and freedom are used in the book. I think
there will be an onslaught of Little Woman essays so, I'm going to go against the grain.

Bradlee Rohan

On Being Owned

In Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs describes the horrors that arise when a persons loses their humanity and are treated as nothing more than property. The strife which Jacobs endures does not only exist whilst she is in servitude, but also while she is attempting her escape. Despite the decision to flee from the grasp of Dr. Flint, Jacobs still carries the same fears she did when she served the family. This brings upon the notion that "masters" did not just own a slave physically, but that in many cases the slave was owned mentally as well.

Joel Rodriguez

Female literacy

Female literacy was mentioned as a major historical event on the Chronology of American Literary History handout under the dates for 1820-1850. It was significant because it gave rise to the participation of women in education and the establishment of women’s colleges. The rise of literacy integrated women into the literary field because, literate women were able to write and be educated. It caused them to write educational manuals, housewife manuals, and novels. It also caused women to become teachers and spread their wisdom to the future generation of women. Literacy also meant that women were able to sign their names; this gave them a voice and an identity. The main idea of increasing female literacy was that it established a female audience among readers. The upper class was likely to be consumers of literature; so they would buy and read books.

Alene Tchekmedyian

New Year's Day

“Hiring-day at the south takes place on the 1^st of January. On the 2d, the slaves are expected to go to their new masters” (Jacobs 15). A lot of irony is found in just the title of the shortest chapter of the novel; “The Slaves’ New Year’s Day.” One’s New Year’s Day should be filled with a lot of happiness and contentment, but for the slaves, this supposedly-joyful day would determine their life for the rest of the year. Another subject that Jacobs emphasized in this chapter is the sorrows of slave mothers. She talked about a mother who brought seven of her children to the auction-block, and lost all of them to a slave-trader. At this point, Linda Brent hasn’t got any children yet. The chapter somewhat foreshadows Linda whom later on became a mother. As any mother would, Linda did everything she could to protect her own children.

-Dovieke Angsana

Letters in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

The plethora of letters being sent back and forth in the book represent the importance of written communication. While many times, the letters sent to Linda; either by Dr. Flint or other persons interested in possessing Linda as chattel are viewed as undesirable ones which emphasize Linda's condition as a slave and as a piece of property, in more frequency than the latter, letters represent Linda's power as a literate human being to reject the supremacy of those who would claim it, and outwit the ones who would trick Linda back into the 'jaws of slavery'. Dr. Flint's letters to Linda are used as a means to further his power over her and to "help to advance his favorite scheme," (31) to browbeat Linda into complete mental and physical submission. Linda's rejection of the letters- her refusal to read them, and her conscious decision to reject not only the letters, but with it, its proposals, is symbolic of her refusal to submit to her condition, despite the overwhelming evidence of the futility of her resistance.
Later in the work, numerous letters are written to Linda by those who wish to recapture Linda and to bring her back into the power of Dr. Flint. Her literacy, her ability to read between the lines, and her ability to discern between genuine words of honesty and well crafted phrases designed to confuse and fool her, are what keep Linda from becoming the chattel which she struggles so valiantly to resist becoming. Linda's literacy is essential to her successful rejection of a life of bondage. The letters which appear so frequently in the book serve to emphasize the precipitous dangers which constantly loom over Linda, as a fugitive slave, and consequently serve to emphasize the intelligence, bravery, and courage of the woman who employs these letters to her own advantage in order to escape these very dangers.

Castles

Castles

In Little Women, the theme of castles is oft repeated and represents the individual dreams and desires of each of the four little women and Laurie. Chapter 13 is full of allusions to these fantastical dream castles which the young people imagine are waiting for them in the "Celestial City". The Celestial City is an allusion to the heaven in Pilgrim's Progress, the ultimate goal of the pilgrim, and consequently, the ultimate destination goal for the children. They imagine the heavenly city to be a difficult place to reach, and likewise, the dreams they hope to achieve in their lifetimes seem just as improbable. All of their castles have realistic impediments which frustrate their progress towards achieving their goals. The most important of these obstacles is the struggle which all of the young ones face between their duties to their families and their duties to themselves to achieve their dreams. In chapter 13, aptly named "Castles in the Air", Laurie is torn between his grandfather's wishes for him to attend college and his own desire to become a world famous musician, while Jo is torn between her desire to pursue her writing and "get rich and famous"(140) and her domestic duties as a woman and a daughter. The castles in the air represents the dreams and fantasies of youth before its adulteration by the realities and expectations of societal mores and familial duties.

Replicative Model

A replicative model is when a person grows up to be just like their mother. For example, in Alcott's "Little Women" Meg is just like her mother Margret. Meg likes to sew, and does her best at running a household, though at times she has trouble. Like her mother she battles with money and adores her family. When Margret is not around, Meg is always the one to take care of the others, and guides her sisters. She fits the mold of a replicative model.

Allyson Sawyer
Discussion 1A

The Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday

In Hale's Manners, the author describes the Fourth of July as a celebration of Christian households. According to Hale, if a country did not consist of households, it would be doomed to failure (she cites Sparta as an example). Hale sees America's success as a result of the sacred institutions of Christianity and families. There is a patriotic tone throughout this piece that is meant to invoke nationalism within the readers. Hale believes households and Christianity are the backbone and foundation of American society, and that without them the result would be doom and downfall.
Hale highlights the importance of the household and religion to breed patriotism, and also to reinforce women's roles as mothers and domestics. She illustrates these roles as civic duties that are necessary for the success of the country and encourages women to be mothers and wives, to take care of thier households, and be beacons of religious knowledge.
Hale also focuses on another important national holiday to reinforce the importance of family and the role of women as mothers and moral leaders. George Washington is idolized by Hale, who states that he only one step below Jesus, and attributes his amazing character and virtue to his mother. She uses the first president of the country as an example of the perfect man and uses his mother to be a role to other women. The role of women is portrayed as the nurturer, and the molder of boys into men. Washington's mother is seen as delicate and pious, and his wife is represented as faithful and dedicated to her husband. Washington's greatness is constantly credited to his mother, and this tactic is meant to reinforce the importance of the female role as a mother, and reinstate it as a civic duty. The downfall or the success of the country, according to Hale, rests with the stability of the Christian household.


Ashley Smith

Power Loom

The invention of the power loom contributed to the first steps of civilization towards industrialization. Originally created and implemented in England during the late 18th century, Francis Cabot Lowell copies plans for the power loom and eventually builds his own mill in Waltham, Massachusetts. As the power loom was driven by water, this first mill was constructed next to a river.

The "Lowell" mills were staffed by young girls, generally in their early to late teens. The mills offered a variety of financial and spiritual motives for its employees. Although mill work often had an ill effect on health (constantly breathing in cotton fibers, moving machinery, exposure to temperature extremes), when not working employees were provided with a safe and protected environment through boarding houses and supervision. A portion of their pay was also deducted by the Church, which supplied matrons to provide religious and surrogate maternal guidance.

Many of these young girls came from a rural environment, in which sisters and daughters were destined to be married off quickly to alleviate their drain on family resources. The power loom made it possible for these girls to move into the city and out of the household without marrying. The ability to earn one's own wages also allowed a mill girl to send money home to help the family, or contribute to their own dowries for future marriage. For many of these girls, their wages were also the first time they had personal money to spend as they saw fit, introducing a new class of consumers.

The power loom made textiles widely available for the first time in history, which also created a new demand for raw resources and workers to process materials. Farm girls that moved into the city to work at these mills were often able to apply previous domestic sewing experience to a form of proto-manufacturing known as piecework. The Lowell mills (and its subsequent industrial counterparts) were located in the northern states, while the cotton producing plantations resided in the south. The demand for raw resources by northern factories made plantation farming in the south highly profitable. These plantations in turn resulted in a focus on slave dependant labor in the south, as evident in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Another side effect of young girls clustering in textile mill boarding houses is education and introduction to available literature. While on the farm, literacy for a girl would have been considered unnecessary for the execution of tasks in her gender specific sphere. Life in the city presented a new independence and freedom, in which girls were able to pursue reading and writing as they wished in their free time. Mill girls had access to circulating libraries, which made available a variety of literature including escapist, moral, and religious documents. Post-work recreation in the boarding houses often took the form of communal reading. Girls residing in the boarding houses also had opportunities to attend Lycean Lectures, a form of self-education in which guest lecturers were invited to speak on a variety of topics. Mill girls also wrote literature of their own, most notably "The Lowell Offering," a publication that ran from 1840-1845.

While the power loom introduced industrialization and allowed women a chance to enter the workforce, the bad working conditions would also fuel reformist movements (resulting in reformist writings) to improve labor legislation, which likewise would form the foundation for future abolition and suffrage movements (again resulting in relevant literature).

- Joseph Lu

Peephole

In Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author recounts her life as a slave, and the painful, long journey she took to lead herself and her children to freedom. Harriet narrowly escapes Dr. Flint, and if forced to live in hiding in her grandmother's house until the right opportunity for her escape comes about. She lives for nearly seven years in a crawlspace above the house, which she cannot leave for fear of exposure. This is a painful and tedious time in her life and she cannot acknowledge her presence to her young children, who long for her and live under the same roof. To spare her sanity, Linda manages to make a small peephole in the wall of her hiding place, which she uses to watch her children and overhear any news or gossip that goes on outside the home.
The peephole that Linda created was the one small window into the real world that she had for seven years, and the small inch or two that she could look upon her children through. Although she was not under Dr. Flint's rule, she was still not free, and chose to live in a dirty, cramped space without the companionship of her children and friends instead of living as a slave. Linda chose these drastic conditions over living in bondage, and this choice reveals the harshness and hellishness of slavery and the measures many people took to escape it. Her peephole motivated her to eventually achieve freedom for herself and her family, and it kept her alive through the long dark years she spent secretly stowed away.

Ashley Smith
hazelnutwhitemocha@yahoo.com

Jo's Refusal

'Yes you will!' persisted Jo, 'you'll get over this after a while, and find some lovely, accomplished girl, who will adore you, and make a fine mistress for your fine house. I shouldn't..." (351).
Author Louisa May Alcott in "Little Women" effectively portrays the protagonist of the story, Jo, as a defiant young girl who behaves similar to that of a male character. She simply refuses to conform to the pressures of society to behave as a young lady. Throughout the novel, Jo forms a close friendship with the boy next door, Laurie. When Laurie asks Jo to be his wife, she attempts to convince him she is not the right person for him as he is more suited for a woman who is "accomplished" and will "adore" him. Intially, it is suggested that Jo ultimately rejects the concept of marriage, however as the story progresses we learn Jo has chosen to marry Professor Bhaer who in the end is able to bring out the creativity that rests in Jo. Therefore, it can be assumed Jo's rejection of Laurie directly relates to her inability to conform to the "young, obeying wife" that Laurie deserves.

Cecilia Luppi

Ferns' Ideals

"The moral of all which is, that if nobody else will take care of you, you might just take care of yourself" (74).
An advocate of independence and womens' rights, Fannie Fern of "Folly as it Flies" stresses the importance of women living without the influence of societal pressures. Fern acknowledges it is exhausting for women to meet the demands of the difficult manual labor they engage in each day. She embraces the concept of taking time to relax and rejuvenate as women will otherwise dig an early grave for themselves. She argues against the notion that men look after their wives writing, "Nobody else will take care of you." It is understandably a call for action for her readers to embrace their own freedom and independence.

Cecilia Luppi

S.J. Hale "Home Department"

"The home department belongs exclusively to the wife. The province of the husband is to rule the house; hers to regulate its internal movements" (39).
Sarah Josepha Hale provides readers with an extensive outline of the expectations women were required to fulfill in her manual entitled, "Manners." Focusing primarily on etiquette and the behavioral rules women should exhibit, Hale argues womens' place was in the home and that men should provide the finances for the family. It is implied that the role of the wife is not to be in anyway of less importance to that of the husband as she is responsible for the internal happenings of the household. The use of the words "exlusively" and "regulate" help to support this theme that the women contributions to the household were of primary importance to create a positive society.

Cecilia Luppi

The Detached Philospher

In Louisa May Alcott's novel 'Little Women', the role of the detached philosopher seems to fall upon all the men in the novel at one point or another. Joe's father Mr.March is a chaplain for the Union army, but he is also as the head of his household depicted as a man who sets the spiritual and intellectual guidance for the March women... including Marmee. John Brooke (Meg's future husband) serves as a tutor, companion, and clerk/bookeeper all the while maintaining his own philosophies, while Laurie and Mr. Bhaer are perhaps the ideal embodiments of the philosopher: one is wealthy and distributes charity without a care in the world, while the other is a European tutor who is not so financially sound.
It is interesting that in Alcott's novel all the men at some point are depicted as intellectual thinkers for the women, and none are really depicted in blue-collar manual labor positions as was common for men at the time.

--Rachel Robles

Spitting in Dishes

Spitting in Dishes
This is an extremely important event because Linda (Jacobs) describes to the reader some of the events that have taken place in the home of Mr. Flint. If the cook does not prepare the food on time or there is something wrong with the food, Mrs. Flint would go to the kitchen and spit in all the dishes right after they had been served to the family. She did this so that the servants ate nothing, because the servants were only able to eat what the family allowed them to have. Mrs. Flint kept close eye on the kitchen and she knew if one of the servants took food from her kitchen, they were only allowed to eat what she thought that she thought they deserved. This is also a demonstration of how cruel Mrs. Flint was as well as how far she would go in order to be control of her house.
by Gloria Negrete-Lopez

New Years

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, author Harriet Jacobs illuminates the great disparity between the celebration of New Year’s Day for black slaves and white population during the 1800s. As Jacob affirms, New Year’s Day for the white community consists of gifts and heart-warming affection. The celebration of New Years for slaves however was not elating, but excruciating. January 1st is the date in which slaves were sold. Hence, griefs of the powerless slaves were conveyed during the sales due to the separation of family members. The implication of New Years significantly connects to the theme of the plot, which exemplifies the corruption of slavery. There is an apparent injustice with the system of slavery which revolves as the central theme of the story. In conclusion, it is perhaps ironic that the celebration of New Years is conceived as a joyous holiday that promotes family gatherings, yet for slaves it is the precise contrary.

Donald Ung

Education

“The higher, that is, the more thoroughly trained, the mother has been in all branched which her children will need to study, the better able she will be to form their minds for the reception of culture” Pg. 34

Sarah Josepha Hale stresses the idea of women to be properly educated and trained in domestic science in order to form the minds of her children in response to society and giving them the correct upbringing to apply to mankind. On a greater scale, the education of the woman will assist in providing a better society by applying this knowledge in raising her children whom are the future of society. Since Hale identifies the women as the providers of morality and good values, it is best to make sure that women are fully equipped in knowledge when it involves teaching and preserving morality within their given households.

Ogo Olele

Duty of the man if the women must marry

“honor her as the weaker vessel, which surely means the delicate, appreciating care such as he would take of fine porcelain, in distinction from a common clay vessel…” Pg. 30

Sarah Josepha Hale not only emphasizes the woman as the weaker complement of the “ideal marriage”, but directly places the woman in the category of the husband’s property or object. In her piece she illustrates the image of the woman as appearing weak and fragile. This image is associated with the ideas of the woman to be delicate and easily shattered as mentioned in lecture. Therefore, implying the inability of woman to fully take care of herself and requesting dependence upon the man for strength.

Ogo Olele

I say to such women: Write!

Fanny Fern's advice to women who want to keep-off inanition and not become mentally annihilated in "Folly as it Flies" is to: Write! Women bound by "a woman's sphere is home" devote little time to the replenishing of their bodies, souls and minds. Women, often busy with diverse labor intense tasks in the household and in tending the needs for many others, forget to leave some time to devote to themselves and replenish their physical, mental and spiritual energy. This is needed to continue with their lives and if not done it makes women's lives much shorter. Fern advises women to take care of themselves even if no one else will, in order to continue to be alive to take care of others. Women should devote some time to themselves by reading and/or writing. Fern's offers women other practical advice to improve the quality of their lives: take time to rest when tired or sick, take at least 15 minutes everyday for a walk outside the home, go to church on Sunday, have less children, take time to get to know the children by talking to them. Fern must tell women to devote some time to the sustainment and development of their own self and mind because women are trained to think of all others before themselves.

John Bunyan

John Bunyan

[Natalie Suárez]

John Bunyan is the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical novel that had a tremendous influence on Louisa May Alcott; and as such, Pilgrim’s Progress is alluded to often in Little Women. In fact, Alcott prefaces Little Women with an excerpt from it. By aligning her novel to Bunyan’s instructional novel, one can infer that Alcott’s Little Women will also be an instructional novel of sorts, specifically for girls. In fact, in the very first chapter entitled “Playing Pilgrims,” the girls are prompted by their mother to play Pilgrim’s Progress, a ‘game’ they played as children. Each girl is to take on a ‘burden’ and work to overcome it. Marmee states:

We are never too old for this, my dear, because it is a play we are playing
all the time in one way or another. Our burdens are here, our road is
before us, and the longing for goodness and happiness is the guide that
leads us through many troubles and mistakes to the peace which is a true
Celestial City. Now, my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play,
in earnest, and see how far on you can get before father comes home. (13)

This is the first of many lessons given by Marmee to her girls. Alcott’s novel can be seen as intended to instruct girls on how to become good little women, using Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as a guide or model to do so. Overall, just like Bunyan’s novel, Little Women is full of lessons that are intended to instruct.

New Years

Donald Ung

"God-breathing Machines"

This is how Harriet Jacobs refers to how slaves are treated. They are treated as machines that are used for work. Even though they are created by God, meaning that they are humans, slaveowners view them as being less than human. Slave women are reduced to just their bodies; as a machine that is only good for making having babies, thus creating more slaves. Slaveowners believed that slaves could not feel any human emotion. They would never really get tired, or sad or hungry. They are only a piece of property.

Danielle Galante

“The pink cheeks which first won you may have faded

Magda Pena

“The pink cheeks which first won you may have faded, but remember that it was in your service, when you quietly accept the fact that ‘you have left your wife far behind you in mental improvement.’” Pg 68

This quote comes from Fanny Fern. Here Fanny is reminding the male in a marriage to take into account that his wives beauty might have faded away, but it has faded because she has worked so hard to keep a home and take care of all his needs. Men only consider a woman’s beauty when selecting a wife, but they need stop to think if this beautiful, sensitive woman will be able to cook, clean, wash and do all the things that he requires from her for a happy marriage.

Men lose interest in their wives and fanny says that these men just accept the fact that their women are not as cultured as they are. It is not their wives fault it is their fault for not being able to understand their wives plight and help them by educating them to keep their marriage going. Basically men have to take realize that they chose a beautiful wife above a hardworking wife and they cannot blame anyone but themselves.

“I wish it was easy for me to do little things to please people, as it is for you. I think of them, but it takes too much time to do them"

[Magda Pena]
“I wish it was easy for me to do little things to please people, as it is for you. I think of them, but it takes too much time to do them; so I wait for a chance to confer a big favor, and let the small ones slip; but they tell best in the end, I guess.” Pg. 285

This quote comes from Little Women Jo and Amy went on calls to peoples homes. Jo behaves badly according to Amy and embarrasses her at every house. Amy is very concerned with being “agreeable” to other people. Jo prefers to let little favors slide and do more important favors that really count.

Here Jo seems to be praising Amy for being able to please people. She tells Amy that she wishes she could do little things to please people. In reality Jo is slightly making her actions seem more honest and important than Amy’s. Jo doesn’t pretend to like someone and isn’t afraid to let people know. Jo is more willing to do larger favors and she believes that those favors are more important in the end because people appreciate them more. So in a way she is putting down Amy’s sort of hypocrisy because she is agreeable with people to look good in front of them and Amy believes that this is the only way she can please people because she is poor. Jo doesn’t allow her poverty to be something that stifles her personality like Amy.

Black Jeremiad

In the discussion of Maria Steward ( first black woman writer and first woman political speaker) we find that her writing can be classified according to the model Black Jeremiad

The characteristics of this model include:
i) citing the promise of equality
ii) criticism of the present situation and its failure to live upto the promise
iii) society will redeem the promise

Steward's writing whose audience incudes white and black women, mothers and daughters as well as humanitarianists and God gives voice to her political ideas using a number of forms and a continualy changing tone.

The forms she uses include an oratorical manner of writing, the I- conversion narrative, rhetorcial questions, testimonies and autobiography. These techniques present to the reader a rich myriad of the problems that so many sections of society in particular women are facing and the struggle that must be undertaken to make a positive difference in this situation.

- Dione Joseph

Sisterhood of women

In her book "Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl" Jacobs uses this term in relation to the damage that slavery does to women in general who come into contact with it.

The primary recepients are of course the slave women who soon find themselves at the mercy of their masters ( as in the case of Dr. Flint who wishes to enter into concubinage with Linda ) and those who rebel against this behaviour find themselves and/or their children in very difficult positions.

However the southern wives are too susuceptible to the damage that slavery has the power to cause. As in the case of Mrs. Flint she is mortified at the fact that her husband has seduced Linda for it not only shamefully reflects upon an unhappy and unsatisfactory relationship but also it reduces her to the same position as Linda - that of a baby producing machine. She too in turn has been objectified as a body. Thus slavery has repercussions that affect not just the slave women who are the direct receipents of their masters' physical desire but it also taints the relationship that all women share as sisters.

-Dione Joseph

chattel

This term is used by Jacobs in "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" and carries with it an assortment of implications. In the first instance the term was used to refer to cattle however very soon it began to used increasingly for slaves. In the first instance the implication was to suggest that slaves were to be treated as "property" without any rights whatsoever ( as Dr. Flint so eloquently points in reference to the $300 which Linda's grandmother lent her mistress).

Secondly and perhaps more importantly it also attributed to slaves the same status as that of cattle i.e devoid of any feeling. Thus slaves could be tretaed with extreme cruelty, forced into submission and generally be thought of as objects because they were no more than the cattle that their masters owned.

This is in turn also leads to another consequence which is the hindering of intellectual development as a result of this treatment. Denied the right to education, slaves were forced to continue in a vicious cycle where they were separated from their children, had no power in any sphere and looked forward to each new day with dread for like cattle - it may very well be their last.


- Dione Joseph

Tin Kitchen

In Lousia Alcott's book " Little Women" Jo finds the space to realize her literary ambitions in the form of the tin kitchen. This instrument, essentially a symbol of domesticity is transformed into a literary tool in the attic where Jo reigns supreme in her imaginary world.


The attic is a space where Jo escapes from her household cares and finds freedom in creating new worlds where mundane things like dishcloths and brooms have no place. Yet it is ironical because despite all her attempts to struggle against the domestic sphere she is forced to use an old "tin kitchen" as the means to which she can persue her literary end.

By comparing this space - the attic dominated by the tin kitchen and Jo in a black pinafor with a red bow on her head to the space she occupies at Mrs. Kirks in New York, Alcott enables us to appreciate the growth that Jo undergoes from writing juvenille literature in her tiny secret space in the attic to spreading her wings and finding a greater physical freedom in New York where she delves into an altogether different form of writing - namely sensational literature.

- Dione Joseph

“the centres of our household commonwealth, and the trainers of the nation’s children”

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Prescriptive literature

Prescriptive texts were one of the forms of literature that middle class white women would read. They usually were in the forms of moral pamphlets, manuals and magazines. These texts would tell thee women what it meant to be a good housewife and mother. It taught them how to be more domestic. This stems from the idea that women are the ones who teach their children morals and values. It is these values that lead these children to be good men and women, thus leading to a better society. Women became the main comsumers of these books, and thus increased sales for authors by spreading the word about these books.

Danielle Galante

Fugitive Slave Act

This act is mentioned in the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
What?
The Fugitive Slave Act is a law that was established to prevent people from helping the runaway slave.
Significance
- Because of this law the white people started to sell fugitive slaves from North to the South.
- Most slaves were kidnapped and re sold.
- Made very difficult for slaves to run away from their owners.
- As a result of this law Linda became more vulnerable; if a white man were to identify her as a runaway slave they could have sold her to anyone without any mercy.
Sewwandi Abeyratne

Bildungsroman

The Bildungsroman is a novel (roman) that is meant to be a portrait (bildungs). This portrait should mold and shape those who read it, teaching them to follow the moral example the novel puts forth. Little Women is an example of this; Louisa May Alcott includes literal ‘portraits’ of the women gathered together, as in the opening scene where the girls gather around Marmee to read their father’s letter. These warm images of familial and feminine harmony are put forth as an example for the readers to follow, as are the characters’ lives. The book “Pilgrim’s Progress” plays a large part in Little Women’s being a Bildungsroman—the girls each receive one for Christmas as the novel opens, and frequently refer to it as they grow and mature spiritually.

--Emily Page

La sage femme

In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott positions the character of Marmee as “la sage femme” or wise woman. The term literally refers to the image of a midwife who would assist both in births and deaths. In the novel Marmee guides the girls through the transition from adolescence to womanhood through oral stories. Marmee’s role as the advisor and match maker in the absence of a constant father figure within the family endows her with an amount of power. Other characters' treatment and opinion of her reflects her superior guidance and wisdom. Marmee's ability to know things before they happen, especially with the girl's romantic developements, suggest her affinity with this image- positioning her as the advisor.
--Megan Costello