Tales of the Old Plantation

1
Tales of the Old Plantation

• Joel Chandler Harris and Charles Chesnutt

2
Preliminary Questions

• How are the stories by Harris and Chesnutt
  similar? How are they different?
• How do the authors use Southern slave dialect?
• How does each author employ trickster figures in
  their work, and to what effect?
• How does each author depict slavery? Are their
  depictions similar or different?

3

• Robert C. Nowatzki, Passing in a Whjite
  Genre Charles W. Chesnutts Negotiations of the
  Plantation Tradition in The Conjure Woman,
  American Literary Realism 272(1995), 20-36.
• Evaluates Chesnutts stories in relation to
• Conventions of the plantation tradition
• Racial ideologies that inform those conventions
• Contrasts Chesnutts use of the conventions of
  the plantation tale to those of Joel Chandler
  Harris
• Argues that stories in The Conjure Woman both
  reinforce and subvert the dominant racial
  ideologies of the post-Reconstruction period

4
The Plantation Tale

• Tales feature a white speakers prologue written
  in standard, sometimes elevated English.
• Speaking then shifts to an old black uncle who is
  reminded on any given occasion of a particular
  tale he knows or lived through.
• The folktale then gets told in very heavy dialect
  that looks to recover the rhythms of speech, the
  beliefs and the practices associated with the
  folkways of blacks in the pre-civil war south.
• Typically they center on the conjuring practices
  of black slaves or tales of shrewd animals that
  can talk.
• It was a kind of anthropology, and writers of
  these stories could get very invested in the
  identity of the figures they created.
• In many ways, these stories, written during the
  troubled period of reconstruction in the South
  after the Civil War, were clearly nostalgic for
  what their authors idealized as the more
  peaceful, orderly days of slavery.

5
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)

• Biography
• Literary career
• Editor
• Humorist
• Enormously successful writer of plantation
  fiction
• Racial politics
• Ethnography and dialect

6
(No Transcript)
7
Legends of the Old Plantation (1880)

• Frame narratives in which third-person white
  narrator depicts Remus and the young son of
  Remus former master
• Animal tales that Remus tells are actual slave
  folktales told in middle-Georgia black dialect
• In most of the tales, Brer Rabbit overcomes
  stronger adversaries through cunning and cheating

8

• "'Well, I speck I got you did time, Brer
  Rabbit,' sezee 'maybe I ain't but I speck I is.
  You been runnin' 'roun' here sassin' atter me a
  mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter
  de cen' er de row. You bin currin' up yo' capers
  en bouncin' 'roun' in dis naberhood ontwel you
  come ter b'leeve yo'se'f de boss er de whole
  gang. En den youer allers some'rs whar you got no
  bixness,' ses Brer Fox, sezee. 'Who ax you fer
  ter come en strike up a 'quaintence wid dish yer
  Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar whar you iz?
  Nobody in de 'roun' worril. You des tuck en jam
  yo'se'f on dat Tar-Baby widout waitin' fer enny
  invite,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'en dar you is, en
  dar you'll stay twel I fixes up a bresh-pile and
  fires her up, kaze I'm gwinteter bobbycue you dis
  day, sho,' sez Brer Fox, sezee.
• "Den Brer Rabbit talk mighty 'umble,
• "'I don't keer w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox,'
  sezee, 'so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch.
  Roas' me, Brer Fox,' sezee, 'but don't fling me
  in dat brier-patch,' sezee.
• "'I ain't got no string,' sez Brer Fox, sezee,
  'en now I speck I'll hatter drown you,' sezee
• "'Skin me, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee,
  'snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my yeras by de
  roots, en cut off my legs,' sezee, 'but do
  please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat
  brier-patch,' sezee.
• "Co'se Brer Fox wnater hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez
  he kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en
  slung 'im right in de middle er de brierpatch.
  dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit
  struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'roun'
  fer ter see w'at wuz gwinter happen. Bimeby he
  hear somebody call im, en way up de hill he see
  Brer Rabbit settin' crosslegged on a chinkapin
  log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip.
  Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad.
  Brer Rabbit wuz bleedzed fer ter fling back some
  er his sass, en he holler out
• "'Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox--bred
  en bawn in a brier-patch!' en wid dat he skip out
  des ez lively as a cricket in de embers."

9

• Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy
• Where are the stories told?
• What morals do they impart to children?
• What do we learn about the human characters?
• What do we learn about the animal characters?
• How does Harris deploy the figure of the
  trickster in his tales?

10
Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby, 1881
11
(No Transcript)
12
The old plantation negro and the old negro
house-servant seem to live and talk again in his
pages and very interesting and attractive people
they are, full of quaint good sense, full of
affection, of good humor, and of natural
courtesy. Why has the negro of to-day so
completely lost the best traits that marked his
race at that time ? The good nature and humor are
gone and the courtesy is gone and what good
qualities have taken their place? The negro has
become a voter, and in the effort to seem the
peer of the whites he has copied many of the
worst defects of uncultivated white men, and has
at the same time lost some characteristics of his
own which once made his race attractive and
lovable. It is a period of transition let us
hope that as it took a hundred years to transform
the African savage into the gentle and lovable
negro known on many a plantation before the war,
so an- other hundred years may develop the negro
of to-day into something much better than now
seems probable. It is sad that the overthrow of a
great wrong like slavery must smite, for the time
being, the victims as well as the
oppressors. Review of On the Plantation which
appeared in the Dial in 1892.
13
In 1946, Walt Disney company released Song of the
South, a popular and critically acclaimed musical
based on Harriss plantation tales. The hit song
from the film, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, won the 1947
Academy Award for Best Song.
14
(No Transcript)
15
Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932)

• Biography
• Writing career
• Activism

16

• "I think I must write a book. I am almost
  afraid to undertake a book so early and with so
  little experience in composition. But it has been
  a cherished dream, and I feel an influence that I
  cannot resist calling me to the task. . . . The
  object of my writing would not be so much the
  elevation of the colored people as the elevation
  of the whites--for I consider the unjust spirit
  of caste which is so insidious as to pervade a
  whole nation, and so powerful as to subject a
  whole race and all connected with it to scorn and
  social ostracism--I consider this a barrier to
  the moral progress of the American people and I
  would be one of the first to head a determined,
  organized crusade against it.
• --Charles W. Chesnutt, written May 1880 in
  his journal at age 22

17

• Why would Charles Chesnutt, an African American
  writer, take up the form of the plantation tale?
• Desire for commercial and critical success
• Desire to appropriate and parody the form

18
Chesnutts use of conventions of plantation tale

• Use of narrative frame device
• Depiction of black storyteller
• Contrast between black storyteller and white
  narrator (Julius vs. John)
• Depictions of slavery

19
Racial difference between the two narrators
reflected in language

• Do you live around here? I asked, anxious
  to put him at his ease.
• Yas, suh. I lives des ober yander, behine
  de nex san-hill, on de Lumberton plank-road.

20

John describes Julius a venerable-looking
colored man a tall man . . . Slightly bowed by
the weight of years Julius hair is about six
inches long and very bushy, except on the top of
his head where he was quite bald. Remus a
tall, grey-haired negro whose apperance was
somewhat picturesque. He stood towering with
an expectant smile lighting up his rugged face.
21

• These stories are very nearly worthy to have
  been written by the creator of "Uncle Remus." Mr.
  Chesnutt is we presume, a Northern man, who has
  lived in North Carolina for a number of years,
  and he has caught very successfully both the
  Negro dialect and (a more difficult thing still)
  the peculiar mystical and superstitious
  characteristics of the negro mind. Uncle Juliuss
  stories of "The Conjure Woman" have a unique
  quality of mingled humor, pathos and mysticism
  about them which makes them singularly
  impressive. The old negro himself is very
  dramatically presented, and is a thoroughly vital
  figure. The comparison with Mr. Harriss stories
  is, of course, inevitable, and will occur at once
  to every reader, but the fact that these tales
  stand the comparison so well is the best possible
  proof of their merit.
• -----
• Review of The Conjure Woman, "New Books,"
  The Sunday News Charleston, SC, 2 Apr. 1899 11

22
Example The Goophered Grapevine

• What is the structure of the narrative?
• How is Uncle Julius both similar to and different
  from Uncle Remus?
• Who is the trickster figure in Chesnutts stories?

23
Chesnutts Subversion of the Plantation Tale

• Is John a credible narrator?
• How are his moral limitations evident in the
  narrative?
• Johns cynical responses to Julius tales versus
  Annies more sensitive ones
• Interaction and juxtaposition of Julius and John
  foregorunds Johns acquisitiveness and hypocrisy

24
Julius

• Shrewd (gets best of his employer)
• Tales thereby subvert hierarchical relation
  between the narrator and storyteller
• At the same time,Julius never directly denounces
  slavery

25

• Those dialect stories, while written primarily
  to amuse, have each of them a moral, which, while
  not forced upon the reader, is nonetheless
  apparent to those who read thoughtfully.
• --Chesnutt to an interviewer

26
Gothicization of the Plantation Tale

• Setting things are in disrepair
• Plot conjuring powers of black characters
• Theme confrontation between rational and
  supernatural forces
• How are supernatural powers used?
• Which force prevails in the story?
• How is slavery ultimately depicted?

27
Passages

• The Goophered Grapevine
• by Charles Chesnutt

28
"Well, I dunner whe'r you b'lieves in cunj'in er
not, -- some er de w'ite folks don't, er says dey
don't, -- but de truf er de matter is dat dis yer
ole vimya'd is goophered."    "Is what?" I asked,
not grasping the meaning of this unfamiliar
word.    "Is goophered, cunju'd, bewitch'."    He
imparted this information with such solemn
earnestness, and with such an air of confidential
mystery, that I felt somewhat interested, while
Annie was evidently much impressed, and drew
closer to me.    "How do you know it is
bewitched?" I asked.    "I wouldn' spec' fer you
ter b'lieve me 'less you know all 'bout de fac's.
But ef you en young miss dere doan' min'
lis'n'in' ter a ole nigger run on a minute er two
w'ile you er restin', I kin 'splain to yer how it
all happen'."    We assured him that we would be
glad to hear how it all happened, and he began to
tell us. At first the current of his memory -- or
imagination -- seemed somewhat sluggish but as
his embarrassment wore off, his language flowed
more freely, and the story acquired perspective
and coherence. As he became more and more
absorbed in the narrative, his eyes assumed a
dreamy expression, and he seemed to lose sight of
his auditors, and to be living over again in
monologue his life on the old plantation.
29
Mars Dugal' tuk it in his buggy en driv ober ter
Aun' Peggy's cabin. He tuk de basket in, en had a
long talk wid Aun' Peggy. De nex' day Aun' Peggy
come up ter de vimya'd. De niggers seed her
slippin' 'roun', en dey soon foun' out what she
'uz doin' dere. Mars Dugal' had hi'ed her ter
goopher de grapevimes. She sa'ntered 'roun'
mongs' de vimes, en tuk a leaf fum dis one, en a
grape-hull fum dat one, en a grape-seed fum
anudder one en den a little twig fum here, en a
little pinch er dirt fum dere, -- en put it all
in a big black bottle, wid a snake's toof en a
speckle' hen's gall en some ha'rs fum a black
cat's tail, en den fill' de bottle wid
scuppernon' wine. W'en she got de goopher all
ready en fix', she tuk 'n went out in de woods en
buried it under de root uv a red oak tree, en den
come back en tole one er de niggers she done
goopher de grapevimes, en a'er a nigger w'at eat
dem grapes 'ud be sho ter die inside'n twel'
mont's.
30
Fus', when de grapes 'uz gethered, de knots begun
ter straighten out'n Henry's h'ar en w'en de
leaves begin ter fall, Henry's ha'r begin ter
drap out en w'en de vimes 'uz b'ar, Henry's head
wuz baller 'n it wuz in de spring, en he begin
ter git ole en stiff in de j'ints ag'in, en paid
no mo' tention ter de gals dyoin' er de whole
winter. En nex' spring, w'en he rub de sap on
ag'in, he got young ag'in, en so soopl en libely
dat none er de young niggers on de plantation
couldn' jump, ner dance, ner hoe ez much cotton
ez Henry. But in de fall er de year his grapes
begun ter straighten out, en his j'ints ter git
stiff, en his ha'r drap off, en de rheumatiz
begin ter wrastle wid 'im.    "Now, ef you'd a
knowed ole Mars Dugal' McAdoo, you'd a knowed dat
it ha' ter be a mighty rainy day when he couldn'
fine sump'n fer his niggers ter do, en it ha' ter
be a mighty little hole he couldn' crawl thoo, en
ha' ter be a monst'us cloudy night w'en a dollar
git by him in de dahkness en w'en he see how
Henry git young in de spring en ole in de fall,
he 'lowed ter hisse'f ez how he could make mo'
money outen Henry dan by wukkin' him in de cotton
fiel'. 'Long de nex' spring, atter de sap
commence' ter rise, en Henry 'n'int 'is head en
commence fer ter git young en soopl, Mars Dugal'
up 'n tuk Henry ter town, en sole 'im fer fifteen
hunder' dollars. Co'se de man w'at bought Henry
didn' know nuffin 'bout de goopher, en Mars
Dugal' didn' see no 'casion fer ter tell 'im.
31
    "But long 'bout de een' er dat five year
dey come a stranger ter stop at de plantation. De
fus' day he 'uz dere he went out wid Mars Dugal'
en spent all de mawnin' lookin' ober de vimya'd,
en atter dinner dey spent all de evenin' playin'
kya'ds. De niggers soon 'skiver' dat he wuz a
Yankee, en dat he come down ter Norf C'lina fer
ter learn de w'ite folks how to raise grapes en
make wine. He promus Mars Dugal' he cud make de
grapevimes b'ar twice't ez many grapes, en dat de
noo wine-press he wuz a-sellin' would make mo'
d'n twice't ez many gallons er wine. En ole Mars
Dugal' des drunk it all in, des 'peared ter be
bewitched wit dat Yankee. W'en de darkies see dat
Yankee runnin' 'roun de vimya'd en diggin' under
de grapevimes, dey shuk dere heads, en 'lowed dat
dey feared Mars Dugal' losin' his min'. Mars
Dugal' had all de dirt dug away fum under de
roots er all de scuppernon' vimes, an' let 'em
stan' dat away fer a week er mo'. Den dat Yankee
made de niggers fix up a mixtry er lime en ashes
en manyo, en po' it roun' de roots er de
grapevimes. Den he 'vise' Mars Dugal' fer ter
trim de vimes close't, en Mars Dugal' tuck 'n
done eve'ything de Yankee tole him ter do. Dyoin'
all er dis time, mind yer, 'e wuz libbin' off'n
de fat er de lan', at de big house, en playin'
kyards wid Mars Dugal' eve'y night en dey say
Mars Dugal' los' mo'n a thousan' dollars dyoin'
er de week dat Yankee wuz a runnin' de grapevimes.
32
 . . . En I tell yer w'at, marster, I wouldn'
'vise yer to buy dis yer ole vimya'd, 'caze de
goopher's on it yit, en dey ain' no tellin' w'en
it's gwine ter crap out."    "But I thought you
said all the old vines died."    "Dey did 'pear
ter die, but a few ov 'em come out ag'in, en is
mixed in mongs' de yuthers. I ain' skeered ter
eat de grapes, 'caze I knows de old vimes fum de
noo ones but wid strangers dey ain' no tellin'
w'at might happen. I wouldn' 'vise yer ter buy
dis vimya'd."    I bought the vineyard,
nevertheless, and it has been for a long time in
a thriving condition, and is referred to by the
local press as a striking illustration of the
opportunities open to Northern capital in the
development of Southern industries. . . I have
not noticed any developments of the goopher in
the vineyard, although I have a mild suspicion
that our colored assistants do not suffer from
want of grapes during the season.    I found,
when I bought the vineyard, that Uncle Julius had
occupied a cabin on the place for many years, and
derived a respectable revenue from the neglected
grapevines. This, doubtless, accounted for his
advice to me not to buy the vineyard, though
whether it inspired the goopher story I am unable
to state. I believe, however, that the wages I
pay him for his services are more than an
equivalent for anything he lost by the sale of
the vineyard.