The thing that interests me the most about The Conjure Woman Tales is the structure of them. It is complex and modern, but also reflects ancient practices of oral story telling. It's initial structure is a frame story, where John, our narrator, is telling a story within a story. But as it progresses we see that it is also a Slave Narrative being told in the structure of a frame story. Slave Narratives, a unique category of literature, was
eventually made up of these oral stories told by slaves and written down by a
white author. Many scholars question the validity of these narratives because
most of the early stories published were contaminated by the white author.
Since the majority of slaves did not know how to read or write, their stories
had to be written by a white author and often published under that author’s
name. Chestnutt uses a unique form of writing style for The Conjure Woman
Tales, as the stories are written by an African American (Chestnutt), but
narrated as a Slave Narrative (the stories are being orally told by Uncle
Julius to Sally and John), two white plantation owners, who then tell the stories
through their narration. This leaves the reader not only questioning the
validity of the stories, but also wondering which narrator they should believe:
Chestnutt, Jim, or Uncle Julius. But these stories are authored by an African-American in the form of a Slave Narrative, so it's kind of paradoxical in its structure. To me, it's brilliant. I found this quote when browsing Wikipedia (I know- not the most accredited source, but it's great for references):
"As George Joseph notes in his chapter on African literature
in Understanding Contemporary Africa, whereas European views of literature
often stressed a separation of art and content, African awareness is inclusive:
"Literature" can also imply an artistic use of words for the
sake of art alone. ...traditionally, Africans do not radically separate art
from teaching. Rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers,
taking their cue from oral literature, use beauty to help communicate important
truths and information to society. Indeed, an object is considered beautiful
because of the truths it reveals and the communities it helps to build."
This made me think of Uncle Julius and our class discussion on whether he was "good" or "bad". I think that Uncle Julius, like any other normal person, has qualities of both. His intentions, to me, seem good, but he's also not a fool and will benefit from certain situations if he can, like gaining a new suite or protecting his store of honey. His stories, though, "communicate important truths and information to society", society being, in this case, John and Anne. He is sharing life information to them in a way that is a social norm of Southern culture. To me, Uncle Julius is a "trickster". A trickster can be either good or bad, but often times he is both.
In folklore of any kind, the storyteller will use the “trickster” to act as the antagonist of the
events to come. Aside from African folklore, we see this character in many of
Shakespeare’s plays, such as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ariel in The
Tempest, and Feste in Twelfth Night. In The Conjure Woman Tales, not only could Uncle Julius be considered the "trickster" in the frame story, but the conjurers
of the stories within the story are the “tricksters”, as they create conflict
amongst the other characters of the story. When I think of Uncle Julius, I can't help but think of Puck from A Midsummer's Night's Dream. They are mischeivious and create conflict, but they are, for all intents are purposes, good. And to me, the trickster is the most authentically "human" character of folklore because he combines both the good and the bad.
An Example of an African Trickster Tale
Another thing I found interesting about this collection of stories is the difficulty of understanding Uncle Julius' narration. Slave dialect is difficult and I think part of that is because we think of it as "broken English", or at least that's what I thought it was when I first read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But I learned in one of my language classes that it's really its own dialect because it borrows from English and African dialects to create its own form, usually known as Gullah or Creole. Watch this video on Slave dialect:
It is a perfect example of slave dialect and maybe can help when reading this kind of language. Ironically, it is a white scholar that is using this dialect and its origins, but it's still a great video.
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