Reading for conflict

OK, so now that I'm reading for conflict I realize there is conflict all over this book, with all the characters. Lizzie, especially and I would identify her as the main character. Lizzies conflicts are as follows:

Lizzie loves Drayle her Master and she is conflicted about this, embarrassed when Mawu's asks her.

Lizzie, is eventually conflicted about running away. Does she stay or does she go? This causes other conflict. If she goes she leaves her children behind, as slaves, even though they are Drayles children, she doesn't know how they;ll be treated or if she will ever see them again.

Lizzie is conflicted in her feelings for Mawu, she cares for her, and is a little jealous of her at the same time. Some of this conflict I think spills over into her decision to tell Drayle about Mawu.

She is internally conflicted over whether or not to tell that Mawu is planning on running away; she does tell and this causes external conflict with the other slaves and caused MAwu conflict with her Master who beats and rapes her publicly as punishment.

Lizzie is conflicted the 3rd year at Tawawa as to whether to ask Drayle to finally sell Phillip to the barber so he can marry the barbers daughter. She realizes that this favor may have penalties in regards to Drayle ever freeing her children. i.e. 1 favor of this magnitude is all Lizzie may ever be able to get.

Fran, who is Drayles wife is conflicted over her husbands affair with Lizzie and conflicted in how she feels for Lizzie. SHe both hates her (tries to sell her while Drayle is away) pinches her, is mean to her. But later in the story when Drayle finally brings them both to Tawawa house the same summer and Lizzie gives herself an "abortion" and can;t stop bleeding, Fran takes care of her and sleeps on the couch next to her so Drayle can't force himself on her while she is still recovering.

Mawu doesn't really feel any conflict regarding her slavery, she wants to run and will do it the first chance she gets, but apparently (i say apparently because this is speculation from other characters) she feels conflict about leaving Lizzie behind. The next summer when Mawu and Reenie run, Reenie goes and keeps going until she gets to NY where Mawu stay's locally in a little cabin in the woods.

Mawu's conflict was only when to run, and when she had the opportunity she pretty much set her master on fire and tried to kill him. When he was pulled out of the burning cabin still living her and Reenie run during the confusion. She knew she had to because she is pretty sure her master knows she tried to kill him. Glory knows where she is and the following summer when Lizzie comes back with Drayle and Fran, Glory takes her to see Mawu who gives her notice that she is going soon and asks Lizzie to come with her. Apparently they think Mawu was waiting for Lizzie.

This was a bad decision for Mawu because Lizzie decides not to go and then Mawu gets caught. You only ever here this from the servants at the hotel and never hear her story, so it's resolution is unsatisfying at best. Mawu's conflicts are really unresolved, Lizzie never comes, she tries to run away and only stays gone for a year before being caught. You never find out what happens to her but the assumption isnt; good.

Lizzie stays because of her children and her love for Drayle and even because her and Fran seem to have reached a certain understanding of each other. You still never get the feeling that she resolved anything in her internal conflict. You really never get the sense she wants to leave, just that the others think she should want to leave and she really only considers it because she feels like she should

Drayle may have conflict during the story in regards to whether or not to free his children (they are his bargaining chip with Lizzie) and decides not to, but at the end promises Lizzie that he will send Nate, her boy north to be educated at school for mixed blood children. But Rabbit, her daughter will stay (Rabbit will be the bargaining chip that gets Nate to come home).

Drayle decides to sell Phillips based on Lizzies speech and with holding of affection and seems resigned if not pleased in the resolution of his conflicts.

Fran seems to come to terms with Lizzie by taking care of her and pretty much admitting that she has been jealous of her relationship with Drayle and jealous that Lizzie was able to bear his children when she was not. But she seems to realize is that Lizzie's part in it may not be all "roses" and that she is part of their twisted family.

Reenies earlier conflicts the second summer was when she walks into he water and tries to kill herself (due to thecommencement of the managers late night visits). The other girls stop her so her suicidal conflict is resolved but her second conflict whether to run or not is never discussed. But when Mawu runs, so does Reenie. She gets to NY and gets job cleaning and has someone send Lizzie a letter to Tawawa house so she knows where she is and that she is ok. Conflicts resolved.

Sweet's children all die from smallpox of something back at the plantation the summer that Mawu and Reenie run, she goes a little crazy mourning them and then pretty much throws herself in a ravine and dies. So her conflicts are all resolved.

Phillip is a minor character and his conflicts are really Lizzies and he serves as a sounding board for Lizzie, but he wants to be sold and marry the barbers daughter and he is. He is living in Ohio and learning the barbering trade with his new wife. He comes back to Lizzie to give her info she will need if she decides to run. So his conflicts are resolved as is his brotherly relationship with Lizzie.

All in all analyzing this book is starting to feel like beating a dead horse. Uhhh....

broken spirits

after Mawus beating the spirits are broken 1 by 1. Phillips hopes are dashed when Drayle won;t sell him to the black barber who's daughter he is in love with, MAqu's beated, Reenie is being molested nightly. Lizzie was being cold shouldered by them all for telling. At a loss for companionship she seeks out Glory, the white Quaker woman in the woods for companionship. THis is a new and strange friendship for Lizzie who hasn;t before had an equal relationship with a white woman. Then Sweet gives birth finally but the baby is sickly and dies a few days later.

Lizzie tries to gigure out how to act with Glorys husband and reconcile her "rules on how to act with white men" when around him. All of whihc begin with "don;t look them in the eye". Glory deperatley wants a child of her own but can;t seem to conceive. All in all they end the summer in a sad place, with all of them worse off than when they went to Tawawa house.

Lizzie tells.....

So of course Lizzie tells Drayle about Mawu's plan. And says to him "Don;t let him hurt her Drayle" He says he has to tell. She says, ""talk to him and don;t let him beat her hard, just enough to keep her from__"

Lizzie feels justified for telling because she is worried about Mawu getting caught or worse during the escape. She is afraind she'll be killed or taken away in chains. But Lizzie doesn't quite get that Mawu's existence is worse than that already.

Mawu's master stands her in fron t of the slaves and 2 white women in the distance, whips her telling her that her and her children will never be free. Just as Lizzie thinks it won;t be too bad a beating, he rips off Mawus clothes until she' s naked and whips her bloody, then pushed her on to her knees and rapes her from behind. Alll Lissie can think is that here at the resort they forgot to protect themselves, they started to feel human.

Dinner party

Oddly enough the men tell the women to get ready to have dinner with them at the Hotel in a private room, as opposed to in their cabins. They are given some pretty shabby dresses and 2 days to sew them into presentability. Most of them try to look pretty except for Reenie who chooses the most unbecoming and modest of the dresses. The rest are trying out this dinner party mentality. They are unsure as to what the free kitchen staff thinks of them. Back home they deal with jealousy pride and pity because they are the Masters women but they are not sure of the attitudes here. This feeling of being ostracized at home binds them together at the resort each summer.

Reeniw is filling her masters pipe, sweets master has his head in her cleavage, Mawu's master is drunk and getting drunker and Drayle is asking Lizzie to dance. You can really start to see the difference in each girsl situation. They all note the hotel manager checking out Reenie and Lizzie is getting nervous. However Lizzie is paying more attention to how the servants are serving so she can learn how to "serve fancy" back at home. She still managers to have pride in her jobs I guess.

The hotel manager has a quick conversation with Reenie's master, who goes over and talk to Reenie. Reenie yells NO!, says she's not doing it. Mawu trys to jump in and help , Sweet starts to cry and Lizie starts to plead with Drayle. Their reactions are all indicative of their character thus far. Reenie goes limp and has a look of a woman that is done fighting. Mawu chastises Reenies Master, (Sir) who smacks her in the face and says "don't try to come between my and my property." Reenie is forced in to the managers bed for the rest of the summer.

Lizzie later asks Reenie her story (stories don' t get told lightly). Turns out Reenies master is her own brother and her daughter is her daughter and her niece. She had her family help fix her so she can;t have anymore babies, but her brother keeps sleeping with her. Her mother was raped by Sirs father until he died. After he died his wife had her beaten until one day she just disappeared.

Lizzie can;t stop thinking about how different her life is with Drayle. How good he is to her children. She can;t believe that Reenies mother just left so she thinks she must be dead, she can;t imagine a mother leaving her childred. She is also scared because she knows the fugitive slave law was just passed and the northerners have to help the slave catchers now.

Meanwhile a free black barber comes to cut the mens hair. He is trying to buy Phillip from Drayle. Lizzie is not getting this, but the barbers daughter is with him and looking at Phillip. d Drayle doesn;t want to seel and can;t understand why or how the barber could could want to buy this slave. Lizzie is starting to realizie that is Drayle won't free Phillip for a good price, who he can easily replace, he will most likely never free her children. Lizzie, though, dope that she is, just think show wonderful Drayle is that he discussed the matter with the barber as if her were a white man. She really is pretty ignorant and blinded by love I guess. Ugg! What an idiot.

Mawu gets that the barber is trying to buy Phillip because his daughter who works at the plantation is in love with him.

defining moments

So the defining moments so far in the book are as follows; the slaves get a day off, leaving 1 (sweets who is very pregnant) behind almost as collateral; if they were even a few minutes late, Sweets would be beaten, never mind if they ran away. This is the day they decide to take a walk over and see the resort next door that they heard about. A resort for free blacks. They meet a quaker woman in the woods names Glory who shows them the way. They all have some trust issues, the slaves and Glory but they get through them and Glory shows them the way. Lizzie feels as though she needs to see this, to know it exists for her children's sake, so she can tell a world without slavery does exist. She feels the limitless they would have if there father would just free them. Mawu, as usual is the only one who has the nerve to go up to the hotel and talk with the free people, Phillip goes with her but the rest hide in the woods. The end result is that Mawu can't understand how they can all be there in free land, right by other free blacks and not be thinking about running away. They are all up in arms remarking that the others would never get to come back again if 1 ran away. The others all ahve children back on the plantations, and for the women, they children are mostly from their masters. Mawu starts outlining aplan but she needs Lizzies help to write a letter and Lizzie is the only one that can read. THis is Lizzies defining moment.

Some back story on Mawu next. Her Master started trying to take her when she was really young, being a fighter she held him off a while, but after haven been beaten down she is raped repeatedly, for years. She's had 4 or his children, 3, of which he sold outright. The 4th fell out of her sling while she was working in the fields and hit his head on a rock and is not quite "right" any more. Mawu is done loving anything, even her last child. She's been trying everything to keep Tip, her master away from her. Chewing stinky herbs, not washing, but he enjoys her resistance. She is determined not to be had again and cant understand why Tip brought her to the resort.

You can not really understand the differences between Lizzie who is in love with her Master and her and her children are treated fairly well, to Mawu, who's existance is hell.

Mawuis on Lizzie to write the letter but she is stalling. We don;t know much about Reenie at this time but Reenie tells Lizzie she is "undecided" as of yet. Lizzie is afraid but entranced. She has also noticed Drayle (her Master) payin some attention to Mawu and is struggling with some jealousy.

So I have come to the conclusion that one of the themes of the book is similar to the chapter them we have been reading in out lit book. Innocence V.S. experience. What I mean by is that it is becoming clear that Lizzie's, although hardly an actual innocent, is innocent by means of her love for her master, compared with the cynicism rampant in Mawu, Reenie who are routinely brutalized. At this point in the book, Lizzie has a hard time comprehending how MAwu and Reenie can want to run away, even leaving a child behind, but due to her innocence she really doesn't comprehend their version of slavery. More descriptions as to what happened and why later! HAve a good weekend!

1st reading (mostly)

Well as much as I would love to post after each reading, my reading session are usually abruptly ended followed immediately by a diaper change, sippy cup procurement or an extreme mess to clean up. However, my last four or five mini-sessions sort of melded together into a coherent thought.

So Wench opens of course with two definitions of the word.

Wench (c.1290): A girl, maid, young woman; female child.

(1362): A wanton woman; a mistress.

United States: (1812; 1832); A black or colored female servant; a negress.

(1848): A colored woman of any age; a negress or mulatress, especially one in service.

So we see that the definition of wench has changed throughout the centuries and leaves us with the knowledge that the book takes place during the mid 1800's. But the next page give a quote which having read forward a bit certainly summarizes a definite feeling of what constituted "property" in the south during that era.

"Her beauty was notorious through all that part of the country; and colonel Moore had been frequently tempted to sell her by the offer of very high prices. All such offers however, he had steadily rejected; for he especially prided himself upon owning the swiftest horse, the handsomest wench, and the finest pack of hounds in all Virginia."

-The Slave: or Memoirs of Archy Moore (1836)

So, I have to wonder, really wonder of the audacity of a person who can take credit for not only the beauty of another human (that they did not birth) but apparently credits himself for how well trained she is, just like his dogs, and horses. Swallow that. Then get back to what this tells us about the story. I think the quote infers will be exploring the place of African American women in slave society. It gives detailed insight of white slave owners, their expectations and entitlements. It really sets the tone of where you are as you start chapter one.

Part one begins in 1852, (9 years before the first shots of the civil war are fired)

6 slaves sit in a circle plaiting each others hair; The book has a 3rd person narration. Lizzie who at this seems to be the main character. A "house servant" and mistress of a small plantation owner. Lizzie is half in love with her master, had born him 2 children and is treated (by comparison of the others) kindly by her Master. Phillip, a head groomsman from the same plantation. Reenie, an older female slave from another plantation. Henry and George twin brothers and Sweet a heavily pregnant twenty something slave. They are at a summer resort in Ohio (free territory) with their Masters. The females are their to "tend" to the needs of the men, cooking, sewing and cleaning (or so they tell their wives regarding why they need to bring the slave woman on their vacation) and managing horses, gathering wood, hunting and fishing etc. Enter Mawu; a light skinned freckled, bushy, red headed slave who's entire appearance in unconventional. Just the physical description tells you this one will be trouble. Lizzie is immediately struck by Mawu, drawn to and yet a little jealous of. Almost a "girl crush" . The untamed hair is a nice symbol of her supposed untamed spirit. The others want to plait her hair right away and she declines saying "Tip" her master wouldn't like it. They invite her to sit and talk and she takes them up on it. They don't need many words to fit together having shared many of the experiences of slavery they really understand each other. the dialog is pretty short and to the point. Written in slave vernacular, it reminds me of Toni Morrison but doesn't seem to have the same punch. The narrater tells us this is the second summer at the resort for all the slaves. The resort also has Northern white guests who dislike slavery so the guests with female slaves have their own cabins and don't stay in the hotel. The males sleep in the hot attic with the hotel servants. The slaves are lonely for companionship, even avoiding the "free black" servants who work in the hotel. George starts telling them about a place he heard about. a "free colored resort" she heard about on the other side of the woods. An immediate argument starts about the existence of free blacks, what their place in society is like, where they are etc. Mawu stops the conversation and says "when us going?" Lizzie senses an attraction between Phillip and Mawu. Reenie questions Mawu on why she doesn't want her hair plaited, a confrontation happens questioning what kind of woman Mawu is.....Mawu, indignant says she can "sho see what kind of woman y'all is" "Y'all aint talking about nothing, ain't doing nothing. You probably run behind your mens all day sweeping up they dirt".

They immediately give her silence, "shut out with a wall of disregard." Mawu leaves and nothing more is said.

The author gives you a very real sense of the isolation of each slave even among their constituents, their loneliness and need for companionship, particularly the woman's need for other woman. Yet they maintain a distance even from each other as a protection mechanism, based on their experiences of loss throughout their lifetime. In addition, as "house slaves" they have a real distance from the other slaves that makes it more palpable.

Chapter two finds Mawu teaching Lizzie how to make a stew from back in Louisiana that will "soften up a white man" . Lizzie is comparing herself to Mawu, physically and thinking that having seem Mawu's master Tip, that he didn't deserve to feel the tender scratch of Mawu's fingernail down his back. At this point you can see that Lizzie is projecting her thoughts and emotions of her relationship on to Mawu's making assumptions that there is some love and tenderness as in hers. Lizzie, however senses a carefree looseness about Mawu's that makes her question whether she ever gets beat. The conversation progresses to family and origins. Lizzie really has no living mother and no close females on her plantation where Mawu had a birth Mammy and other support on hers. A real dialog begins about their ancestry when Lizzie asks if Mawu's mammy was white. Mawu says her Granny was and she left the baby behind and took off. A discussion ensues about whether or not the baby was free if the mammy was white. Mawu says she never heard of such a thing, that the baby was rightful property. This discussion give us clues as to the attitudes the slaves have regarding their own caste system and their interpretations of the laws of the society in which they live. When Mawu asks why Lizzie talks different, Lizzie tells her she can read (which she is very proud of). So we see yet another way Lizzie is set apart from the other slaves and the different base she may have in her attitude toward her own slavery. Her Master has taught her to read which would be considered unusual for a male slave, never mind a female. Then when Mawu asks Lizzie if she likes coming to the resort Lizzie tells her she likes "spending time with her man" Mawus say he's not your man you know. Lizzie doesn't know if Mawu realizes what she means by "spending time with". Mawu, shocked, asks Lizzie if she loves him. Lizzie stops herself from saying yes when she see's Mawu's disapproval. Lizzie asks Mawu why she's with Tip.. Mawu says "cause I belong to him."

So we continue to see that although these two women seem drawn to each other, they are coming from two entirely different places.