ISU Novel Selection

Through analyzing my notes and annotations, I determined that I was most drawn to the theme of dehumanization and the process of finding personal identity and the self in Book of Negroes. I started my research by scouring Oprah's Book Club website for books that interested me and spoke to the theme of personal identity. From there I began narrowing down my substantial list by looking at page numbers and using the Lexile Framework for Reading to determine reading levels. My favourite novel from Oprah's reading list was The Good Lord Bird.

I consulted my well-read family for novels that spoke about dehumanization, and was given a list of authors including Pearl Buck, Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Patrick Conroy. I also looked at 'What Should I Read Next 'resource and looked at novels similar to Book of Negroes. Below is my finalized list of possible ISU novels in order of preference, and below the titles are descriptions of the novels and their relativity to Book of Negroes.

1) The Color Purple –Alice Walker

A novel written in 1982 following the story of a 14 year old African-American woman living in Georgia. She writes letters to God of how she is repeatedly raped and beaten by her alleged father. This novel explores the theme of self-identity and human development and explores the impact narration and writing has on the development one’s sense of self. This mirrors Book of Negroes, in which Aminata is struggling with her personal identity. Similar to Book of Negroes, The Color Purple includes the themes of racism, sexism and dehumanization.

2) The Good Lord Bird- James McBride

A fictional novel rooted in real life slavery events and is described as a descendent of the story ‘Huckleberry Finn’. The protagonist of the tale is Henry Shackleford, a young escaped slave that teams up with the abolitionist John Brown. This plot line is quite similar to that of Book of Negroes. As this novel is so recently published, very little information on themes is accessible, but as slavery is involved, it is more than likely that the themes of dehumanization and racism are present within the novel. It seems that this novel also follows the theme of self-identity, as the protagonist is forced to dress up in drag and live in a brothel.

3) The Good Earth- Pearl Buck

This 1931 novel is the story of a family living in a traditional chinese village before WWI. It gives the reader a glimpse into chinese culture, similar to Book of Negroes showing life in Bayo. The Good Earth focuses on the importance of simplicity and discusses how wealth and power is the destroyer of traditional values. This parallels Book of Negroes’ theme of slavery and desire for wealth and power push humans to do unthinkable things to one another.

The Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

This experiment was held in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University in 1971 by Professor Phillip Zimbardo. The purpose of this experiment was to explore how people were capable of doing horrible things, and questioning whether all people are capable of unnecessary violence unto others. Zimbardo asked the questions: What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? After selectively choosing 24 seemingly psychologically stable male participants, half were randomly selected to be prisoners and half were randomly selected to be guards. Guards were told that they could do what they wished to instill order among the prisoners. This planned two-week experiment ended after six days due to the prisoners showing signs of extreme mental and emotional distress and the guards performing unnecessary heightened abuse.

The events and conditions of the experiment mirrored that of the slave ship in Book of Negroes. The prison gave the prisoners minimal sensory stimulation; there were no clocks, no windows and no connection to the outside world. Similarly,  there was very little activity on the slave ship and often the slaves were forced to stay below decks. A sense of oppression was present in the prison at all times; prisoners were forced to constantly have a chain attached to their foot. This also occurred on the slave ship. Rebellions both occurred on the slave ship as well as within the prison. To counter the first rebellion in the experiment, the guards gave certain prisoners privileges to cause distrust and promote solidarity among the prisoners. On the slave ship, Aminata would be beaten when she spoke her native language. This was to prevent alliances and make the slaves/ prisoner easier to manage. In the experiment, the prisoners were strip searched and humiliated and the cells only contained enough room for beds. The prisoners would also have to urinate and defecate in buckets in the cells, sometimes the buckets weren't emptied and the cells would smell like urine and feces. Aminata also went through humiliation and inspections. The living conditions of the slave ship were horrible: people went to the bathroom on the floor and the slaves were forced to live in very cramped conditions, "piled like fish in a bucket, the men were stacked on three levels" (p. 74). Before seeing visitors, the guards cleaned the prisoners and fed them. This is similar to how Aminata was cleaned and made to look healthy before she was sold.

 Prominant in both the experiment and the novel was the escalating abuse of the captives. At the beginning of the ship journey, the slaves underwent mild physical abuse. Near the end of the journey, Aminata witnessed the sailors publicly sexually abusing the slaves. At the beginning of the experiment, the guards used very little force on the prisoners. Near the end of the experiment, prison guards would enter cells during the night when they believed the researchers weren't watching. Zimbardo describes that "Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners".

Perhaps the cause of this escalating abuse lied in dehumanization. Dehumanization is describes as to deny the "humanness" of others. It is to deny them of their individuality and human identity. In the prison, the prisoners were forced to wear masks in their prison cells, wear matching gowns and cover their hair with nylon caps. They were to respond only to their ID numbers. These ID numbers had consumed become so much a part of their identity that when the priest visited the prisoners and asked them their names, many responded with their ID numbers.  Below is a quote from prisoner 416:

"I began to feel that I was losing my identity, that the person that I called Clay, the person who put me in this place, the person who volunteered to go into this prison -- because it was a prison to me; it still is a prison to me. I don't regard it as an experiment or a simulation because it was a prison run by psychologists instead of run by the state. I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was that had decided to go to prison was distant from me -- was remote until finally I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number."

Calling all of the female slaves "Mary" in the novel paralleled the ID number. Another example of this dehumanization was the use of the word "African" for all of the slaves. The slaves also were also not allowed to pray and they were all forced to wear the same clothing. This was denying the slaves of individuality.

Another interesting investigation is what dehumanization does to the people in power. The guards did not see the prisoners as individuals, which made it much easier to abuse them. In normal situations, the guards probably would not be capable of that extent of abuse. In the novel, could the slave traders and sailors do the work they did if they were forced to learn the names of each of the slaves and where they were from? If the slaves were free to practice their religion and express their individuality? The answer is unlikely. Dehumanization played a crucial role in the atrocities that occurred both during the slave trade and the Stanford Prison Experiment.



All information on Stanford Prison Experiment found on the official experiment website:

And my story waits like a restful beast

In class today, we discussed the chapter 'And my story waits like a restful beast', which is the first chapter of book two. This chapter takes place in London in 1803. In this chapter, Aminata is an old woman discussing her story with the abolitionists. It portrays the abolitionists in quite a negative light. She comments on how they act as if she is deaf and they listen very little to her. One prominent quote of this can be found on page 115, "The abolitionists may well call me their equal, but their lips do not yet say my name and their ears do not yet hear my story". This shows the irony of how the abolitionists are fighting for equality, yet they treat her as if she is a tool; to them, she's is simply a black woman with a useful story. This contrasts with the abolitionist John Clarkson (the actual name of the founder of the abolitionists) who seems to appreciate Aminata for who she is. "Don't laugh, John Clarkson says a little too sharply, I bet she has read more books than you" (p. 117) This chapter was also useful for characterization; it introduces the character of John Clarkson as more understanding and wiser than the rest of the abolitionists.
This chapter of the novel also contained quite a bit of foreshadowing, "In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating." (p. 116) In this quote, Aminata uses a simile to compare her story to a beast, which indicates that there are even worse and more powerful things to come. I really enjoy this sentence, it is a really nice visual. Perhaps that is the reason the author chose use part of this particular sentence in the title of the chapter.

Book of Negroes Title

Unfortunately, I wasn't present during the class discussion about the title of 'Book of Negroes'. But through reading a couple of articles about the subject, I've come to the conclusion that it was completely unnecessary to burn the cover of the book. Historically, book burnings are used to silence or suppress the voice of an author, or even a religion or culture. The harshness and publicity of the act is used -not to eliminate the issue at hand- but to bring shame and unpleasant attention to the author.

Although the title may be deemed offensive, I do not believe that it was intended in menacing way. This was what African Americans were historically called, and censoring the word 'Negro' was simply the author's decision to stay true to the past. It is a harsh title, but the content of the novel is harsh as well, so I believe that it is only fitting. It provides the reader with a little insight on what they are going to be reading. 'Someone Knows My Name' is a much softer title, and the someone picking up this novel may be shocked by the disturbing content.

The title 'Book of Negroes' also serves another purpose, Lawrence Hill has mentioned that the title of the book was also used to bring awareness back to the historical document of the same name. This document was a list of 3,000 African-American slaves who escaped to the British lines during the American Revolution and were granted freedom in Nova Scotia. Hill also mentioned that once people know the historical origins of the title of the book, they are often no longer offended by the title.

The censorship of this book is not necessary, especially censorship to the drastic point of burning books. Personally, I believe that the title of the book is suitable to the content and should not be changed.

Quick Write October 1

Q: What essay question did you like best? Make sure to explain/support your answer.

A: Out of the three classes we worked on essays, I was only present for two. Out of 'The Suitcase Lady' and 'In the Trenches', I preferred 'The Suitcase Lady'. I preferred this essay mainly because the character of the suitcase lady was better developed. In writing, I am more interested in focusing on characters rather than action or intensity. I loved the mystery and character description that was given in 'The Suitcase Lady', one example is on paragraph 2, "Somewhere in her bleary eyes and the deep lines of her face is a story that probably no one will ever really know.". This sentence made me want to keep reading, after I was done the story I wondered about the story of the suitcase lady. Through not providing the name of the suitcase lady added allure.
I also liked the positivity and moral integrity of the suitcase lady. She says, "I believe always try to do the best to help people -the elderly, and kids and my country, and my city of Toronto, Ontario." (Paragraph 25). Although it is important to appreciate what our troops have done in the war, I think that 'The Suitcase Lady' affected me more; it made me think about how I can improve myself to perhaps be more like the suitcase lady. Overall, I enjoyed both of the stories.

My Introduction

Hi my name is Kennedy,

I am currently living at a boarding school in Ontario. I was born in Switzerland and my family is German. I know a little German, unfortunately I forgot most of it when I moved to Canada. I love animals, food, my friends and my family. My interests also include: art, yoga, running and field hockey.

I used to read a lot when I was younger, but school has gotten so busy I don't read as close to as much as I used to. My favourite book is 'Life of Pi'. I am currently reading 'The Shining', but it's taking me a really long time to finish it because it is so scary! I like almost any kind of literature, I think it all depends on the author. Their writing must be varied and have good imagery for me to enjoy their work. One of my favourite authors is Ray Bradbury because he has such an interesting way of writing. In the future, I hope to read: 'The Fault in Our Stars' by John Green, 'Carrie' by Stephen King and 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde.