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Ain't I a Woman: Feminism, Truth and Fiction, and Orwell
So I came across a video of abolitionist and ex-slave Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech, popularly called "Ain't I a Woman?" It was given in support of women's suffrage at a gathering of supporters at Akron, Ohio.
First off, this is my new Exhibit A in why I don't subscribe to the mealy-mouthed mewling about not being a feminist. I wonder if the women who say that are aware of what feminism even is. Listen to that speech, that is a feminist. Do I believe one woman has the worth of one man? Do I see how we're all sick from the poisonous idea that different means inferior? You can bet your ass I'm a feminist. Deeper down I'm a progressive humanist, and being a feminist is part of that.
Second, I was fascinated to find that the popular version of the speech, the one that includes its signature phrase, is a fictional adaptation of the original speech. The actual Sojourner Truth didn't speak in the Southern dialect for the simple reason that she was from New York State. She had five children, not thirteen, and there was no mention of lashing in the original speech. It's fun to compare the first published version, which was true to Sojourner's biographic details, and the later version "recalled" by activist Frances Gage that has since become so popular.
Maybe I should feel let down that the speech isn't "authentic," not in the sense of being true to the original. Somehow, though, I don't feel let down. Maybe it's because I write fiction myself, but I think Gage's changes make the speech bigger, fuller than the original. The speech gained a new voice through the filter of memory or fiction, a new story and personality. Through these changes the words touched on the struggles of men and women in the slave states at a time when the nation was about to go to war over slavery.
Sometimes fiction serves the times better than historical fact, and at that time--and later on--America may have needed "Ain't I a Woman?" more than the actual speech given by the actual Truth. After all the lady, born Isabella Baumfree, knew the value of reinvention and reimagining when she named herself Sojourner Truth. In "Ain't I a Woman" she was further expanded, rarefied even, to be a spirit of the times and the universal themes of struggle, suffering, and strength. That kind of expansion is exactly what fiction does.
Of course, fiction becomes dishonesty when it tries to pass as non-fiction, as Stephen Glass and others discovered. It's true that Frances Gage was close to that line and may have crossed it. She may also have been disrespectful in ignoring the particulars of Truth's life and turning her into something she wasn't. I won't say it's morally straightforward. I will say that Gage created something wonderful out of the good material of Truth's original speech, and captured something important in the process.
That brings me to my third point, George Orwell's immortal essay Politics and the English Language. I listened to "Ain't I a Woman" a few days after reading Orwell's takedown of lazy thinking and lazy words, and I could all but hear Orwell approve. This! I kept thinking. This is how you do a political speech, in plain language and with strong images, and above all, with clear thought on firm moral grounding.
Because in the end, the true disease that Orwell diagnosed in the English language wasn't a shortfall of writing skill or even critical thinking, but a bankruptcy in morality. The need to make the indefensible defensible necessarily distorted the way people thought and wrote and spoke, because how can you defend murder while you look it in the face? Better to make it a bit hazy so the folks at home can stomach it, and start sloganeering instead of saying things that make scary, scary sense.
That is where the power and authority of Truth's speech (and Gage's variation) come from. She didn't need to hide behind words, she used them in the service of her conviction. She could speak with ringing clarity because she had justice on her side. Her words have the strength of unclouded conscience behind them, and that is why they resound to this day.
With Mr. Orwell's words in mind I have tried to write this essay without big words or too much abstraction. It's not easy for anyone, since society teaches bad habits in this regard, and it's especially hard for me because I am in the legal and academic worlds--two areas not known for brevity or beauty in writing. It's a struggle, like wading against the current, but I think I can do it. Words like Sojourner Truth's show me the direction to aim for. This illiterate former slave has so much more to teach me and others about being writers, thinkers, and human beings than the bulk of learned men and women.
First off, this is my new Exhibit A in why I don't subscribe to the mealy-mouthed mewling about not being a feminist. I wonder if the women who say that are aware of what feminism even is. Listen to that speech, that is a feminist. Do I believe one woman has the worth of one man? Do I see how we're all sick from the poisonous idea that different means inferior? You can bet your ass I'm a feminist. Deeper down I'm a progressive humanist, and being a feminist is part of that.
Second, I was fascinated to find that the popular version of the speech, the one that includes its signature phrase, is a fictional adaptation of the original speech. The actual Sojourner Truth didn't speak in the Southern dialect for the simple reason that she was from New York State. She had five children, not thirteen, and there was no mention of lashing in the original speech. It's fun to compare the first published version, which was true to Sojourner's biographic details, and the later version "recalled" by activist Frances Gage that has since become so popular.
Maybe I should feel let down that the speech isn't "authentic," not in the sense of being true to the original. Somehow, though, I don't feel let down. Maybe it's because I write fiction myself, but I think Gage's changes make the speech bigger, fuller than the original. The speech gained a new voice through the filter of memory or fiction, a new story and personality. Through these changes the words touched on the struggles of men and women in the slave states at a time when the nation was about to go to war over slavery.
Sometimes fiction serves the times better than historical fact, and at that time--and later on--America may have needed "Ain't I a Woman?" more than the actual speech given by the actual Truth. After all the lady, born Isabella Baumfree, knew the value of reinvention and reimagining when she named herself Sojourner Truth. In "Ain't I a Woman" she was further expanded, rarefied even, to be a spirit of the times and the universal themes of struggle, suffering, and strength. That kind of expansion is exactly what fiction does.
Of course, fiction becomes dishonesty when it tries to pass as non-fiction, as Stephen Glass and others discovered. It's true that Frances Gage was close to that line and may have crossed it. She may also have been disrespectful in ignoring the particulars of Truth's life and turning her into something she wasn't. I won't say it's morally straightforward. I will say that Gage created something wonderful out of the good material of Truth's original speech, and captured something important in the process.
That brings me to my third point, George Orwell's immortal essay Politics and the English Language. I listened to "Ain't I a Woman" a few days after reading Orwell's takedown of lazy thinking and lazy words, and I could all but hear Orwell approve. This! I kept thinking. This is how you do a political speech, in plain language and with strong images, and above all, with clear thought on firm moral grounding.
Because in the end, the true disease that Orwell diagnosed in the English language wasn't a shortfall of writing skill or even critical thinking, but a bankruptcy in morality. The need to make the indefensible defensible necessarily distorted the way people thought and wrote and spoke, because how can you defend murder while you look it in the face? Better to make it a bit hazy so the folks at home can stomach it, and start sloganeering instead of saying things that make scary, scary sense.
That is where the power and authority of Truth's speech (and Gage's variation) come from. She didn't need to hide behind words, she used them in the service of her conviction. She could speak with ringing clarity because she had justice on her side. Her words have the strength of unclouded conscience behind them, and that is why they resound to this day.
With Mr. Orwell's words in mind I have tried to write this essay without big words or too much abstraction. It's not easy for anyone, since society teaches bad habits in this regard, and it's especially hard for me because I am in the legal and academic worlds--two areas not known for brevity or beauty in writing. It's a struggle, like wading against the current, but I think I can do it. Words like Sojourner Truth's show me the direction to aim for. This illiterate former slave has so much more to teach me and others about being writers, thinkers, and human beings than the bulk of learned men and women.