Karl Livingston
Professor Richards
English 357
21 September 2010
On Valerie Smith’s “Form and Ideology in Three Slave Narratives”
Valerie Smith in her critical essay “Form and Ideology in Three Slave Narratives,” asserts that
Harriet Jacobs seized authority over her own literary work, as opposed to fully being subject to
sentimentalism, an abolitionist agenda, or the formulaic constructions of male slave narratives, in order
to show her unique experience as a black woman. Smith first addresses the construction of the narrative
and the presence of, “the ordering influence of a white…editor” (223). She argues that, “Harriet Jacobs’s
freedom to reconstruct her life was limited by a genre that suppressed subjective experience in favor of
abolitionist polemics” (225). The presence of white authentication and editing not only skewed and
controlled the experiences in the story to appeal to a white, middle class audience, but also prescribed
to a narrative form that was overly sentimental and thus oftentimes unbelievable. Smith uses the
example of Lydia Maria Child’s “Introduction By the Editor” to show how this white presence acts as,
“the voice of form and convention in the narrative--the one who revised, condensed, and ordered the
manuscript” (233). Child’s editing presence within the text of Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
clearly highlights a repetitiveness of the slave narrative in its form, tone, and content. Along with this,
the focus on sentimentality, a common narrative rhetorical device, was geared toward a white female
audience with the intent of strategically eliciting their sympathy through the constructions of popular
fiction. Though Smith admits that Jacobs’s narrative is highly stylized to reflect a white audience and a
white editor, her argument relies upon Jacobs’s ability to prevail over these trite structures. Smith lists
numerous examples where Jacobs’s literary voice triumphs, yet she notably concentrates on the ellipses
and ironies of Jacobs’s confinement. Smith comments on the many places within the narrative that
Jacobs is in hiding or imprisoned. Concentrating on the ambiguity of the “loophole of retreat,” or the
crawl space where Jacobs lived for seven years, Smith notes that this space could accrue a multitude of
meanings: “a place of withdrawal,” “an avenue of escape,” “a place of confinement,” or even an
independence from her master (226). The numerous examples of her concealment display Jacobs’s
power of choice in deciding the means to attain freedom. Smith says, “Repeatedly she [Jacobs] escapes
overwhelming persecutions only by choosing her own space of confinement: the stigma of unwed
motherhood over sexual submission to her master; concealment in one friend’s home…and her
grandmother’s garret over her own and her children’s enslavement” (226). This illustration aptly
expresses Jacobs’s unique experiences as a female slave as well as the empowerment of choice within
both the content and structure of the narrative.
Smith’s most recognizable strength involves her use of examples from Jacobs’s text. The support
for Smith’s arguments is lifted right out of descriptions, events and discourses within Jacobs’s book. The
analysis of Child’s introduction is a particularly thorough example. Smith goes through two of the four
paragraphs written by Childs, and effectively breaks them down to outline the argument that Childs
introduction was written to attach a sense of decorum to the main text as well as to validate the author.
Smith makes an assertion, finds textual evidence, and then explains that evidence so that her point is
clear. Another way that Smith’s argument is strengthened involves her use of background history.
Adding context to any contention, greatly improves the reasoning behind the point, and for a truthful
slave account of the 1800’s, this framework is even more necessary. An example of this can be found
where Smith describes some of the cultural restraints placed on women during the 1900’s. She says,
“Not only were they [women] denied access to the professions, civic responsibilities, and higher
education, but also their secular and religious instruction encouraged them from childhood to adopt the
‘feminine’, passive virtues of ‘submissiveness , modesty, selflessness’”(227). This brief look into the
cultural norms concerning women of the 19th century, allows for a greater contextual understanding of
the text as well as Smith’s assertions.
The problems that arise within Smith’s critique create issues concerning comprehension.
Overall, there seems to be a lack of organization that results from tackling too much in one argument.
Though her points are definitely intelligible, Smith will double back and add examples or emphasis long
after a point has been made. She keeps fluctuating between her discussion of the slave narrative form
and then the content of the text, yet when she does this she oftentimes drops part of an argument just
to be picked up later in the critique. For instance, the discussion of the triangulation of the narrator,
text, and editor is seen on page 223. Smith says, “ the stories [slave narratives] are shaped according to
the requirement of the abolitionists who published them and provided them with readers” (223). After
she finishes her discussion of the editor’s role within the slave narrative, Smith moves on to discuss
topics such as the role of crawl spaces, sentimentalism, and “cultural definitions of masculinity” (229).
Yet it is not until page 232, that a critical examination of Jacobs’s own editor pops up. Jumping from
page to page to outline a summary is not a reader’s idea of an organized critique. The reasoning behind
her seeming lack of organization may be explained by the fact that she is attempting to make a
multitude of assertions within one, fairly short critique. Though the title of the article implies that Smith
is simply delving into the form and ideology of Jacobs’s narrative (presumably along with two other slave
narratives), she alludes to so much more--authentication, race, gender, class, formulaic slave narratives,
authorial intent, editorial intent, audience, historical context, sentimentality, and more. This myriad of
themes that Smith analyzes, muddles her overarching argument and leaves the reader without a clear
sense of a main point or even a couple of main points. Thus, though there are a lot of examples and
clear contextual support to Smith’s critique, the message often becomes too dense and obscure to
navigate.