Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Assignment 8 "Our Nig"
This book was very different in the setting and characters but still maintained manyh qualities of the gothic novel. It was interesting because I don't think thus far that we have read a novel or short story that contained anything but white people. This could be do to the time and setting and the societal issues that had occured up until this point. As for the gothic elements we see a lot of the female gothic. Frado has been orphaned by her parents and the reader sees the typical stock character through Mrs. Bellmont and Mary who could represent the evil step mom and daughter if you look at the book from a cinderella point of view. The fact that Frado attempts to run away from the Bellmont home shows her path to self discovery which the reader also sees through her interest in christianity. Eventually Frado escapes the Bellmont home after years of abuse, and the story has a "cinderella" ending as well when Frado finally escapes, finds love, begins a family of her own, and escapes from the wicked Bellmont family, who at the end of the novella all end up dying except for Aunt Abbey.
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I definitely see the cinderella theme in this story, as you have pointed out. However with this cinderella theme there is not a happy ending. It seems that she is safe and has finally gotten away from Mrs. Bellmont but yet she still suffers. I felt that there wasn't a true happy ending. This seemed to be a morbid story. This novel was definitely different from the ones we had previously read. However now that we have read some more stories revolving around the Southern Gothic we see some similar aspects in this stories as those we recently read.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this peice of work was far more different from what we had read before in class. Although other narratives and novels we read dealt with slight oppression Our Nig had istances of down right degration, which was unheard of when it came to free Blacks in the North.
ReplyDeleteThis piece was very different for even the time period that it came out. It was shocking to hear that this cruelty was happening in the North, where supposedly their racial relations were far more advanced than the South. I agree in that this story exemplifies the female Goth. Even the setting is female Goth in that she is forced or hidden up in the attic, just as one of the crazy women in othe novels we've read.
ReplyDeleteI had never thought about it before but it does kind of have a story tale ending. I think it was nice to see how gothic wasn't just in novels that had a supernatural element. I didn't really notice that this was the first story with an African American but that is true. It was very interesting to see the town setting was actually full of abolitionist and yet you have this brave girl who wrote about how terrible she was treated by these same abolitionist.
ReplyDeleteAs in the story, Mrs. Bellmont was her step mom who treats Frado badly and there were step sisters who hated her out of jealousy. I definitely see the Cinderella formula in “Our Nig” even though it has different set of characters and settings from other gothic literature.
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