Dessa Rose is a novel by Sherley Anne Williams published in 1986 by HarperCollins. The book is a neo-slave narrative, incorporating many elements of traditional slave narratives. The book is divided into three sections: "The Darky", "The Wench" and "The Negress". [1] The sections represent a different stage of growth in the life of the protagonist, Dessa Rose.
The novel begins with Dessa Rose imprisoned in the basement of an Alabamian Sheriff in Marengo County, Alabama for her contribution to a slave revolt. However, since Dessa is pregnant her life is spared, but only until after the birth of her child. Living on borrowed time, she is rescued by two fellow slaves and flees. They travel to a small plantation in Sutton managed by Ruth Elizabeth, or Mrs. Rufel. Her husband had departed on a business trip several years ago and never returned. When the slaves took off, Mrs. Rufel began harboring runaway slaves to replace them. During this time, Dessa gives birth to her baby and resides with Mrs. Rufel who maintains a rouse of owning the slaves on her farm when in actuality she is offering refuge for runaway slaves. A plan is hatched to ensure a hefty financial reward for both Mrs. Rufel and the runaways. Mrs. Rufel must sell the slaves during the day, and then pick them back up at night, cheating the buyers out of their money. When the small band has accumulated enough money, the slaves will flee west and finally be free.
One of the prominent themes in the novel is the sisterhood between Dessa Rose and Ruth Sutton which further contributes to the novel being regarded as a conjointment of womanist and feminist ideals. The novel is also interested in dealing with how motherhood is represented in Neo-Slave narratives. It is a story that deals with themes of enslavement and eventual liberation.
The book is based on two historical incidents. In the year 1829 in Kentucky, a pregnant slave woman led a revolt against slave traders. She was captured and sentenced to be executed, but only after the birth of her child. The following year in North Carolina, a white woman had reportedly been giving refuge to runaway slaves. The book combines the two stories, with the two women meeting and participating in a plan to free the runaways.
The novel was written as a response to William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner . The white man assuming the voice of an African-American man enraged the black community. In Dessa Rose, Sherley Anne Williams, a black woman takes the voice of a white woman. The novel, Dessa Rose alternatively defines freedom and agency from a female character’s perspective using distinct literary techniques. Williams broke free of traditional stereotypes attached to this specific genre of slave narratives and showcased a new kind of multidimensional set of characters.
Irwin Winkler was going to direct a film adaptation in 1988 starring Natasha Richardson, Angela Bassett, Donald Sutherland, Laurence Fishburne, and Cicely Tyson however the film was shut down by United Artists days before shooting with the studio writing off the $5 million (~$10.7 million in 2022) cost. [2]
The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved Africans, particularly in the Americas. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as separate books or pamphlets. In the United States during the Great Depression (1930s), more than 2,300 additional oral histories on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. Most of the 26 audio-recorded interviews are held by the Library of Congress.
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".
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The Baptist War, also known as the Sam Sharp Rebellion, the Christmas Rebellion, the Christmas Uprising and the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32, was an eleven-day rebellion that started on 25 December 1831 and involved up to 60,000 of the 300,000 slaves in the Colony of Jamaica. The uprising was led by a black Baptist deacon, Samuel Sharpe, and waged largely by his followers. The revolt, though militarily unsuccessful, played a major part in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.
Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare, an English poet, playwright and actor. They were married in 1582, when Hathaway was 26 years old and Shakespeare was 18. She outlived her husband by seven years. Very little is known about her life beyond a few references in legal documents. Her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by many historians and writers.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by herself is an autobiography by Harriet Jacobs, a mother and fugitive slave, published in 1861 by L. Maria Child, who edited the book for its author. Jacobs used the pseudonym Linda Brent. The book documents Jacobs's life as a slave and how she gained freedom for herself and for her children. Jacobs contributed to the genre of slave narrative by using the techniques of sentimental novels "to address race and gender issues." She explores the struggles and sexual abuse that female slaves faced as well as their efforts to practice motherhood and protect their children when their children might be sold away.
African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts, influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. African American writers have been recognized by the highest awards, including the Nobel Prize given to Toni Morrison in 1993. Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African American culture, racism, slavery, and social equality. African-American writing has tended to incorporate oral forms, such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap.
Kindred (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses.
Sherley Anne Williams was an American poet, novelist, professor, vocalist, jazz poet, playwright and social critic. Many of her works tell stories about her life in the African-American community.
Up the Sandbox is a 1972 American comedy-drama film directed by Irvin Kershner, with a screenplay by Paul Zindel, based on the novel of the same name by Anne Roiphe. The film stars Barbra Streisand as a young wife and mother in Manhattan, who slips into increasingly bizarre fantasies to escape the predicament of her pregnancy. The film's supporting cast includes David Selby, Paul Benedict, George S. Irving, Conrad Bain, Isabel Sanford, Lois Smith, Jacobo Morales as a character who closely resembles Fidel Castro, and Stockard Channing in her film debut.
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Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman is the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novelistic sequel to her revolutionary political treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The Wrongs of Woman was published posthumously in 1798 by her husband, William Godwin, and is often considered her most radical feminist work.
Dessa Rose is a musical based on the novel of the same name by Sherley Anne Williams with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. It tells the story of a young black woman and a young white woman and their journey to acceptance in 1847 in the ante-bellum South, as they tell their story to their grandchildren.
Inez Haynes Irwin was an American feminist author, journalist, member of the National Women's Party, and president of the Authors Guild. Many of her works were published under her former name Inez Haynes Gillmore. She wrote over 40 books and was active in the suffragist movement in the early 1900s. Irwin was a "rebellious and daring woman", but referred to herself as "the most timid of created beings". She died at the age of 97.
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Bread and Roses is a 1993 biographical film showing significant episodes in the political life of socialist and feminist Sonja Davies, based on her autobiography of the same name. She is portrayed from her early years to her election to the Nelson Hospital Board. Made as a Suffrage Year tribute to the women of New Zealand. Helen Martin says the film is fascinating as a social history, showing her empathy with working class women. The film was shown on television in four episodes in October 1993.