Black Women in Slave Narratives---A Lesson Plan
Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave makes me think about black women voices in black slave narratives. During the reading, I asked myself, “When is Imoinda going to speak?” The reader sees her through the lens of Orooknoko and his grandfather. This made me think of a lesson plan concerning the black woman’s roles in the black slave narrative. How do gender and race intersect in slave narratives? I will be excluding Oroonoko from this lesson plan because it is a work of prose fiction by a white woman. I want to only focus on North American black voices, and it can be fiction and non-fiction.
Objectives:
- To identify black women’s roles in slave narratives;
- To contextualize text(s) to specific gendered histories of black women in black slave narratives;
- To identify black women voices, if any, in black slave narratives;
- To identify a colonial perspective in black slave narratives;
- To identify the author’s thematic concerns and observations;
- To observe the objectification and/or the thingification of the black female body;
- To examine the black slave narrative as a form of resistance
Texts to Observe:
- Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas by Fredrick Douglass
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
- Clotel; Or the President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States by William Wells Brown
- The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano
Supplementary Articles/ Book Chapters:
- “I Was Born”: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature by James Olney
- Katherine McKittrick’s “The Place They Thought of Black Women’s Geographies”
- Christina Sharpe’s “The Ship”
Week I: Introduce the historical background of the slave narrative. Students will be required to read Equiano’s and Sharpes work. They will begin to consider colonialism and the black slave narrative. What themes can you see? Are black women in Equiano’s text? What are there roles?
Week II: Students will be required to begin reading Douglass’ text, and it will be paired with Olney’s article. From here, students will read one of the most famous narratives. Olney’s text will help students understand the formula for the black slave narrative. Most importantly, students will begin to question the role of black women in this text.
Week III: Students will be required to read Jacobs’ text and this will be pared with McKittrick’s article. They will do a compare and contrast to Douglass and Jacobs work. Are there specific gendered histories of these texts? Are these texts used for resistance? How?
Week IV: Students will be required to read Brown’s Clotel. Though Clotel is at the center of this work, does she truly have a voice?