“From her arliest infuncy,” sed he.
“Wall, what upon arth duz she do it fur?” I inquired.
“She kan’t help it.... It’s the brand of Kane.”
Oberlin College is lampooned for being rather “too strong on Ethiopians.” Though a good Unionist in the war, Artemus Ward, unlike his successor Nasby, does not reveal any sympathy for the Negro.
Summary. Irving’s tellers of mysterious legends, Cooper’s house-servants, Melville’s mates in the foc’sle, and the obsequious servants of the Virginia cavaliers reflect their authors’ interests and experience more than they interpret Negro life. Simms’ blood and thunder melodramas and the farces of the frontier humorists give more varied types and experiences, with some crude realism. Melville’s Benito Cereno goes more deeply into character. In the main, however, these subsidiary characters are not very convincing. They speak a pidgin English, closer to the speech of Robinson Crusoe’s Friday than to that of nineteenth century Negroes. Cooper and Simms tried to record dialects; Simms is probably better since Gullah is nearer to pidgin English, but he is still inaccurate. Some authors presented the Negro with dignity and sympathy, but serious realism was still far off. It is worthy of note, however, that such favorite Negro characters as the fabler, the loyal servant, the buffoon, the tragic octoroon, the noble savage, and the revolter, appear in these early books.
Although in a few cases propaganda for or against slavery raises its head, these subsidiary characters are not made into walking arguments. Toward the end of this period, however, the slavery debate broke out, and, in the words of one critic, “the world of nature was lost in the world of controversy.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why were early American novels “tied to Mother England’s leading strings?”
2. What tradition of English literature might account for Irving’s and Cooper’s humorous treatment of the Negro?
3. Since Simms was proslavery, what is inconsistent about his showing Negroes being set free as reward for heroic services?