Assignment

Nineteenth Century American Literature

Submitted to-
Shimmi Ma’am

Submitted by-
Pragya Patel
(MA 1 st Year)
Examine Sojourner Truth’s “Ar’nt I a Woman?” as a Resistance Text.

Sojourner Truth was an African American abolitionist and women’s

rights activist. Truth was born into slavery and grew up speaking Dutch
as her first language. During the American Civil War(1861-1865) which
was the controversy over the enslavement of black people, Truth
helped in recruitment of black troops for the Union Army. Truth
changed her name to Sojourner Truth from Isabella after becoming a
Methodist, which derive their practice and belief from the life and
teachings of John Wesley.

Truth is famous for her speech “Ar’nt I a

Woman?”, in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron,
Ohio. The speech strongly regulates the idea of lack of recognition that
black women received. In other words, black women were virtually
invisible within the protracted campaign for women suffrage. Speech
carries the effects of racism and sexism on black women, civil rights
movement and feminist movements from suffrage to the 1970s. Hooks
argues that “convergence of sexism and racism during slavery
contributed to black women having the lowest status and worst
conditions of any group in American Society”.

BACKGROUND

The Declaration of sentiments adopted at the 1848, Woman’s Rights

Convention in Seneca Falls, New York called for “a series of
Conventions” that would continue to reform efforts across “every part
of country”. In response to that call, a Woman’s Rights Convention met
in Akron, Ohio on May 28 and 29, 1851. The convention featured a
number of woman speaking in defense of their rights and calling for
moral change and legal reform. Truth participated in the convention
and was only woman speaking, who had been in slavery. In her speech,
she argued forcefully for the rights of women, drawing particular
attention to the position of women of color in the social and legal
hierarchy of her time.

The speech was short and impromptu collection of words which

became one of the most important document in American history. The
speech had no title but because of its strong impression it was recorded
as text and published in Anti-Slavery Bugle by Marius Robinson. This
version also did not include the phrase which became the title. Twelve
years later, Frances Dana Gage refashioned the original transcript into
text and attempted to transform the power of speech into power of
written word. The main ideas and structure were identical to the
original speech, the only difference was in language. The speech got its
title as “Ar’nt I a Woman” beacause of several repetition of the phrase.
Soon the speech became an insight, how black women face domination
under slavery, and the domination they faced was specific because of
their blackness and their womaness together, which limits the
liberatory potential of any coalition unified against domination.

“AR’NT I A WOMAN” AS A RESISTANCE TEXT

The speech stands as a landmark in the fight for racial and women’s
equality. Truth spoke before a woman’s rights convention, making
arguments about women’s physical and intellectual capabilities as well
as religious arguments in support of equal rights. She asserts her
identity as a woman and a citizen in the speech. The main purpose of
Truth’s speech was to advocate for woma’s rights from the perspective
of color. She referred to her experiences in slavery and as a still
oppressed free woman. Fitch and Mandzuik mark that “speech is
important because it brings together the two causes for which Truth
spent her life’s work, anti-slavery and women’s rights”. She claimed
that women should be accorded the same rights as to men underlining
her arguments about body, mind and spirit. In the first section of her
speech she argues that woman were physically equal to men. In the
middle section, she argues that women should have equal rights
reflecting their intellectual capacities. In the third section, Truth used
biblical arguments in support of civil rights for women.

In the phrase “Ar’nt I a Woman?”, she made a strong decorative

statement through the personal embodiment of her cause instead of
asking audience to confirm her gender. Truth positioned herself as a
physical, intellectual and religious embodiment of her cause by stating
“I am a woman’s rights”.

Truth first argued the value of the body was to be found in the work it
can do. Her statement “I have as much muscle as any man, and can do
as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and
chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?”. The
work she discussed was the physical work in the fields and the products
of her labor. She claimed that, “I can carry as much as any man, and
can eat as much too, if I can get it”. We notice her that Truth argued
that she could gather and consume as much food as man but did not
mention the domestic task of preparing the food. Truth’s argument
challenged the prevailing concepts of chivalry and women’s fragility
employed by those working against women rights and even by some
privileged female supporters. Chivalry gave agency in public sphere to
white men only. Non-white men were presumed to lack the moral
fortitude to protect their countries or their families and female body
was viewed as “ an object of conquest”. Jacqueline Bacon offered an
analysis of Truth’s speech finding that, “ Truth exposes the hypocrisy of
white antebellum society, which represents white women as inviolate
for sanctioning physical labor for oppressed slave women who’s
experience is ignored in definition of femininity.”

Truth claims her base on intelligence. She asked, “ As for intellect, all I
can say is, if a woman have a pint and man a quart- why can’t she
have her little pint full? You nned not be afraid to give us our rights
for fear we will take too much,- for we can’t take more than our
piny’ll hold”. Truth demonstrated that her intellect was equal to that of
man’s by not denying the claim instead subverting it. She ironically
accepted her opponent’s claim through the use of an analogy of
measurement reassured her audience that since women lack
intellectual capacity, men need not to fear them.

Having countered the intellectual objections, Truth engaged the biblical

arguments against women’s rights. Truth employed four biblical
examples as evidence in this section: the condemnation of Eve, Jesus’
attitude towards women, the role of women in the resurrection of
Lazarus and role of Mary in the biblical story of Jesus. Ellen Carol DuBois
argued that “almost until the Civil War, conflict with clerical authority
was the most important issue in the women’s rights movement”. Truth
began her defense of a woman’s connection to God by demonstrating
that her lack of education had not dulled her faith. Truth also cited
evidence that Jesus responded to the pleas and arguments of women
and did not deny their equal rights. Truth addressed the legacy not only
of the first biblical woman but also of the woman who brought forth
Jesus in this world. Arguing against the idea that women did not
deserve equal rights because Jesus was a man. Truth asked, “And how
came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and
woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?”. Here, again Truth
displayed the role of woman in the story of Jesus. Bacon observes, “
Truth does not refer to Mary but to ‘a woman’, a semantic choice to
universalize women’s role in Christianity. Mary’s central role in
Christ’s presence on earth is not just a part of particular narrative but
a sign of women’s personal connection to Jesus”. Such counter-
arguments in her speech to the norms of American Society against
women and their blackness emerge as resistance to those norms.

As a symbol of both abolitionism and the woman’s rights movement,

Truth was concerned about the freedom of her race but she was also a
part pf the movement for gender equality.

CONCLUSION

“Ar’nt I a Woman?” was a kind of rebuttal speech to the chauvinists and

hypocrits who neglected to include Black women in discussion of
abolition and to white women who neglected to think beyond their
own race while trying to gain vote. Truth challenges long cherished and
idealized view of woman as something to be protected and codded. In
comparison to white woman, black women were treated differently as
not to be considered as woman. Truth challenge the audience to
confront their understanding of denomination by placing her lived
experiences as an enslaved black woman at forground of her politics
and how she is both black and a woman. Tragically, black women who
were associated with the vesriges of slavery- lacking literacy and middle
class respectability or who were born enslaved were marginal in
conversation of freedom. Black women were excluded from the project
of Black enlightenment. Thus, the speech “Ar’nt I a Woman?” serves as
a resistance text in literature as it full of counter-arguments against the
celeberated norms of American society during civil war.