Flight to Canada (Ending)

The last section of reading for this book was much easier to read. I don’t know if it was because I finally got used to Reed’s style of writing or because there seemed to be less historical and literary references. I particularly found the ending of this novel to be very dramatic and filled with twists I didn’t see coming.
For instance I was glad to see that Quaw Quaw and Quickskill finally got things figured out between them, although I did not see their break up coming while I was reading I was glad to see it because now they can both pursue their desired futures. I felt like at time they were holding each other back from what each really wanted to do and now they can fulfill those dreams.
The part of this section that I was reallt taken aback was when we find out that Mr. Swille left his estate and money to Uncle Robin. I guess when I read that Uncle Robin was writing the will for Mr. Swille that I at first, never really thought that he was going to leave all of his possesions to Robin. I thought this because Uncle Robin stole Mr. Swille’s wife from him and I couldn’t imagine Swille leaving anything to him. Then I thought about it a little more, Mr. swille didn’t really leave him all this Uncle Robin simply set it up that way just so that he would receive all of the inheritence. I find this funny becaue it is like eh got the last laugh. No one thought he was intellegent enough to do something like this, mostly because blacks lacked intelectual respect from the whites.

Flight To Canada

After reading the second part of this book I was still very confused on the theme. The more I read of this book the more I get confused. I am not sure what it is maybe it is because I didn’t read Uncle Toms Cabin I don’t know. I also find the tone of the book to be hard to understand at times. Reed tends to use humor and sarcasm in his writing; I find myself having to read and re-read sections to understand if he was writing literally or meant things in a sarcastic way.
I found the character Quickskill, to be a very insteresting character. Quickskill uses his whitteness and smarts to escape from Nebraska. The way he came up with saying that he had to go buy some vitamin C so that he could escape. Quickskill also come off as a very humorous character to me I don’t know if Reed meant for him to seem humorous but I found it ironic that he seems to hold both whittness and humor.
A part of the book that conffusses me is when Ms. Swille is trying to convince people that Canada is no place to go to. Does Ms. Swille really believe this or is this another hiden message in the book that I didn’t get when I read it?

Some common themes are:
Religion
Sex
Community
Desire
Audience
Sterotypes

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (part 2)

The second part of this novel really grabbed my attention. When I first started reading this novel I just assumed it was an autobiography. So when we learned it was in fact a novel in class I was taken aback. After realizing that this was actually a novel I approached the second part of this novel a little differently. While reading the first part of this book I was taking everything literally and assuming that it really happened. So when I began to read the second half of this novel I read it a little less heartedly.
The part of this novel that really grabbed my attention was the unequal treatment of the ex-slave. For example, when Tom Joe beats Harriet and Timmy because he didn’t like the way that they were working, I almost forget that both Harriet and Timmy were no longer slaves. Even though they were free they were still treated like they were slaves. This beating leads to a fight and repercussions. Although Joe was in the wrong in this situation some of the women workers were fired, but nothing was done to penalize Tom.
This really made me think, I mean the slaves finally received what they thought would be the greatest news of their lives, freedom, and it seemed to be nothing more then a piece of paper. If I were to go through that scenario I would have little to no faith / respect in the government. I believe it is this fact that made slaves / ex-slaves do things that they didn’t believe in and/or things that they knew were wrong, but had no other option. It seems like they were backed against a wall with no one to turn to.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

This book has grasped my interest from the first page. I always wondered about slaves lives after freedom. I got a glimpse of this material while reading the WPA narratives, but The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gains is written in much more depth.
The part of this book that particularly grabbed my attention was the massacre chapter. I couldn’t imagine witnessing that at the age of 21 let alone 12. I can’t believe how mature Jane seems to be at such a young age. She just takes Ned in under her wing after his mother was killed, and takes care of him. I can’t begin to fathom how Jane was able to whiteness such a bloody and terrible massacre and not even shed a tear. For her to stay quiet and still in the bushes while listening to people beg for their lives is simply impressive.
Another inspiring factor about this book so far is Jane’s sense of determination. No matter how many people, black or white, tell her to return to where she comes from. No matter what people said to her she was determined to reach Mr. Brown in Ohio. I believe she is so determined to get to Ohio because Mr. Brown was the only one Jane knows that was nice to her. No matter what the reasoning is behind her determination, it is impressive that such a young girl stay so strong.

Narratives

I truly enjoyed reading these narratives. I found that they gave a lot of information about what they are doing now, today, with their lives now that they are free. Almost every other narrative that I have read, only talks about their slavery experiences. I always found myself wondering what ex-slaves lives are like today and these narratives gave me a glimpse. The narrative that I particularly enjoyed was the narrative of Charity Anderson. I found Charities narrative to be interesting because she mentions that her slave live was better then her life is now. I can’t imagine any black referring to the time of slavery as “the good old days,” yet Charity does. I thought about this for a while and I couldn’t figure out why she might think this way. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t get out much now, or that she misses her friends/family I don’t know, I suppose it really could have been better for her as a slave then it was for her after she was free, I just don’t know.
Another part of these narratives that I particularly enjoyed was reading their dialect. Although hard to understand at times, I found the narratives dialect to be very interesting. I found Lucinda Davis’ dialect to be the most interesting. There was a lot of it so you were able to get a real sense of voice in her narrative and I felt like I was actually at the table sitting down and talking with her during parts of the reading. I enjoyed reading Lucinda’s narrative most because I found a lot of humor in her writing. Although a lot of the narratives were humorous in parts I really enjoyed reading Lucinda’s.