Sunday, March 28, 2010
A visit with the mayor
The mayor still has a lot of things going on in Huntington. I was able to visit him over spring break at his open house. There are still major projects going on within the city as the Old main corridor project is wrapping up. We talked about the issues concerning this project and also a few remarks about his budget. Which didn't change much from the city council budget meeting. I plan on meeting him one more time before I begin to write my paper to discuss the issues with the old main corridor project, and the state of affairs within the city.
The Bondwoman's Narrative... A remarkable story!
Before I go into brief detail of the novel The Bondwoman’s Narrative, I would like to present a short summary of the piece so a better understanding is met.
The Bondwoman’s Narrative is a novel that tells the story of a female black slave who was born in Virginia, but is sold to a plantation owner in North Carolina. The slaves name is Hannah Crafts, a mulatto slave born in Virginia, but torn away from her family and sold to become a slave forever. Her new plantation owner is identified in the book as Mistress, not as master because it seems that Hannah and the plantation owner have a friendship amongst each other. After a short while working on the plantation with the Mistress the story is thrust into action after Mr. Trappe, the main antagonist from the novel, exploits the Mistress when he finds out that she is really a black women passing as white. Hannah and the Mistress flee from the plantation and head into the forest where they find a shack to settle into. Unfortunately this shack was the scene of a terrible murder as weapons and clothing are covered in blood. Hannah’s mistress begins to lose sanity and the stress of everything going on gets to her.
After a few months of living in the shack the two are found by some hunters who escort them to prison. While in prison they are met by Mrs. Wright, a senile woman who is was charged with helping a slave girl escape. While in prison for quite some time, the Mistress’s insanity worsens, but eventually the two are moved into house. At first the two have no idea who the owner is, but it turns out to be Mr. Trappe. Shortly after hearing this news, the Mistress suffers a brain aneurysm because of all the stress and dies.
Hannah is returned to owner she had before, however they’re also dead, so she is now working for Mrs. Wheeler, a self-centered woman. Conflict is apparent because the two, especially after a makeup incident that caused Mrs. Wheeler’s face to become black. Mrs. Wheeler accuses Hannah of talking about the “blackface” incident with others. Mrs. Wheeler orders Hannah to be raped in the fields by the one of the head slaves as her punishment. Fortunately Hannah hears the news of her punishment and plans an escape. While heading north, she is aided by a Ms. Hetty. Ms. Hetty helps her with her travels and also teaches her how to read and write. The story concludes with the Hannah going north where she finally meets her mother again.
This novel has all the characteristics of a good heart warming story. The novel has all the parts a good story should have including, a main character, Hannah. There is an antagonist, Mr. Trappe, who goes after the mistress and Hannah. There are support characters, the mistress, and Ms. Hetty, who help the main character advance the story. There are also difficulties that come along that make the story sort of entertaining.
One of the more interesting parts of this novel is the portrayal of the black slaves by the narrator Hannah. The slaves, the blacks, are referred to by the narrator as people first and black second. The narrator is black and she views the blacks as people. It is a different perspective then some of the other slave books out there.
The novel shows the life of this slave as being somewhat mysterious. The main character Hannah seemed to hide her story. She lived a life of secrecy if you will. She doesn’t tell many people of her travels and where she came from. I also find it strange that some of the names were changed or cannot be proved to have actually existed. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is the head of Afro-American studies at Harvard, believes that the character Hannah did exist during the slave period in the 1008s, but her name was not Hannah. Gates was able to validate the writings because he studied the handwriting of the works, the punctuation and the type of ink that was used. At one point Gates thought he had actually found the real Hannah Craft, but it the records of her past did not match the story from these notes.
This novel is credible in some ways, and not in others. It is hard to believe every part of this story, and it is hard to document the story because of all of the name changes to save people. On a scholarly level it is hard to say if all of the parts in this story existed, however it is a remarkable find as far as history is concerned. This piece of history is told through a different perspective. It is told by a woman, a slave woman, who was torn form her family and survived slavery from the south. It is a story of one woman’s strength through a set of difficulties and the fact that she was able to overcome made her story even better. I will say that the story wasn’t the most action packed or entertaining book I’ve read, but the history that it brings to the table is very hard to duplicate. It could possible be the first novel written by a black female slave in history, which is a huge discovery.
In my opinion the novel was good. It gave people a new perspective on the life of a slave, and more importantly the life of a female black slave. It was in an interesting story to say the least, but it is hard to tell whether or not all of what happened really did happen. The Mistress dying of a brain aneurysm because of so much stress seems kind of sketchy. It was probably hard to document such things because the medical advancements in that time were not as they are today. Mr. Trappe probably killed the Mistress after trying to escape or attacking him. I have a tough time believing she died of too much stress, although it could happen, I doubt it was the cause. There are other weird sets of events that make the novel hard to believe, but it doesn’t take away the fact that what Hannah went through during her life was remarkable.
The Bondwoman's Narrative: A Novel
By Hannah Crafts
Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
A Book Review
338 pages
$12.78
Introduction by Gates; Annotation, Appendix A, Appendix B
ISBN: 0-446-53008-5
The Bondwoman’s Narrative is a novel that tells the story of a female black slave who was born in Virginia, but is sold to a plantation owner in North Carolina. The slaves name is Hannah Crafts, a mulatto slave born in Virginia, but torn away from her family and sold to become a slave forever. Her new plantation owner is identified in the book as Mistress, not as master because it seems that Hannah and the plantation owner have a friendship amongst each other. After a short while working on the plantation with the Mistress the story is thrust into action after Mr. Trappe, the main antagonist from the novel, exploits the Mistress when he finds out that she is really a black women passing as white. Hannah and the Mistress flee from the plantation and head into the forest where they find a shack to settle into. Unfortunately this shack was the scene of a terrible murder as weapons and clothing are covered in blood. Hannah’s mistress begins to lose sanity and the stress of everything going on gets to her.
After a few months of living in the shack the two are found by some hunters who escort them to prison. While in prison they are met by Mrs. Wright, a senile woman who is was charged with helping a slave girl escape. While in prison for quite some time, the Mistress’s insanity worsens, but eventually the two are moved into house. At first the two have no idea who the owner is, but it turns out to be Mr. Trappe. Shortly after hearing this news, the Mistress suffers a brain aneurysm because of all the stress and dies.
Hannah is returned to owner she had before, however they’re also dead, so she is now working for Mrs. Wheeler, a self-centered woman. Conflict is apparent because the two, especially after a makeup incident that caused Mrs. Wheeler’s face to become black. Mrs. Wheeler accuses Hannah of talking about the “blackface” incident with others. Mrs. Wheeler orders Hannah to be raped in the fields by the one of the head slaves as her punishment. Fortunately Hannah hears the news of her punishment and plans an escape. While heading north, she is aided by a Ms. Hetty. Ms. Hetty helps her with her travels and also teaches her how to read and write. The story concludes with the Hannah going north where she finally meets her mother again.
This novel has all the characteristics of a good heart warming story. The novel has all the parts a good story should have including, a main character, Hannah. There is an antagonist, Mr. Trappe, who goes after the mistress and Hannah. There are support characters, the mistress, and Ms. Hetty, who help the main character advance the story. There are also difficulties that come along that make the story sort of entertaining.
One of the more interesting parts of this novel is the portrayal of the black slaves by the narrator Hannah. The slaves, the blacks, are referred to by the narrator as people first and black second. The narrator is black and she views the blacks as people. It is a different perspective then some of the other slave books out there.
The novel shows the life of this slave as being somewhat mysterious. The main character Hannah seemed to hide her story. She lived a life of secrecy if you will. She doesn’t tell many people of her travels and where she came from. I also find it strange that some of the names were changed or cannot be proved to have actually existed. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is the head of Afro-American studies at Harvard, believes that the character Hannah did exist during the slave period in the 1008s, but her name was not Hannah. Gates was able to validate the writings because he studied the handwriting of the works, the punctuation and the type of ink that was used. At one point Gates thought he had actually found the real Hannah Craft, but it the records of her past did not match the story from these notes.
This novel is credible in some ways, and not in others. It is hard to believe every part of this story, and it is hard to document the story because of all of the name changes to save people. On a scholarly level it is hard to say if all of the parts in this story existed, however it is a remarkable find as far as history is concerned. This piece of history is told through a different perspective. It is told by a woman, a slave woman, who was torn form her family and survived slavery from the south. It is a story of one woman’s strength through a set of difficulties and the fact that she was able to overcome made her story even better. I will say that the story wasn’t the most action packed or entertaining book I’ve read, but the history that it brings to the table is very hard to duplicate. It could possible be the first novel written by a black female slave in history, which is a huge discovery.
In my opinion the novel was good. It gave people a new perspective on the life of a slave, and more importantly the life of a female black slave. It was in an interesting story to say the least, but it is hard to tell whether or not all of what happened really did happen. The Mistress dying of a brain aneurysm because of so much stress seems kind of sketchy. It was probably hard to document such things because the medical advancements in that time were not as they are today. Mr. Trappe probably killed the Mistress after trying to escape or attacking him. I have a tough time believing she died of too much stress, although it could happen, I doubt it was the cause. There are other weird sets of events that make the novel hard to believe, but it doesn’t take away the fact that what Hannah went through during her life was remarkable.
The Bondwoman's Narrative: A Novel
By Hannah Crafts
Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
A Book Review
338 pages
$12.78
Introduction by Gates; Annotation, Appendix A, Appendix B
ISBN: 0-446-53008-5
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