AADS/ENGL 3328.01
The BondsWoman’s Narrative, by Hannah Crafts is a novel that was compiled by Henry Louis Gates (who purchased Craft’s manuscripts at auction); in the novel, Craft recounts her experiences as a young mixed woman (mulatto), who eventually gains her freedom. As the novel develops, the widespread effects of institutional oppression seem to extend beyond the…
The beginning line of The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Craft is puzzling: “Look not upon me because I am black; because the sun hath looked upon me” (Song of Solomon 1:6). Craft throughout her text begins each chapter with a biblical quote, yet the Song of Solomon is only used once. Why begin her story with a…
In her novel The Bondswoman’s Narrative, Hannah Crafts highlights the impossibility of southern Christianity. While many southerners claim to be men of God, their pledge to preserve the ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery supersedes their Christian morals. When relaying the legend of Rose and her execution, Crafts notes of Sir Clifford that he “made it a boast…
In The Bondswoman’s Narrative, Hannah tells of the portrait-lined drawing room in her master’s mansion with eerie qualities. His ancestor Sir Clifford De Vincent is said to have “ordered his portrait and that of his wife to be hung in the drawing room, and denounced a severe malediction…against any possessor of the mansion who being…