Book Review Essay - My Jim, by Nancy Rawles

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Loresa D. Matarazzo                                           21st c. African American Literature

November 3, 2005                                           ENG 350:445 -- Dr. Evie Shockley

Book Review Essay

My Jim, by Nancy Rawles

        There is much literature on the subject of and/or set during the era of slavery in America, and our archives brim with books describing antebellum life.  Except for slave narratives, however, there is scarce literature written from the slaves’ point of view.  To date, novels, in particular, have failed to depict the lives of slaves accurately or in a way that even approaches the true accounts of slave narratives.  Further, most novels have provided us with little authentic information of the inner life of slave communities and even less about the personal lives of slaves—their everyday horrors, their loves, hopes and incredible strength in transcending evil.

        The majority of books set in the time of American slavery present us with a white person’s point of view, an incomplete and skewed version of the facts that some would say sits well with the comfort level many of us have had for the subject.  Gone With the Wind is a prime example of a largely romanticized representation of slavery from the white slave-owners’ perspective, and it does not include a true reflection of African American experiences before or after the Civil War.  Yet, a few authors have attempted to expose the myth perpetuated by such works as Gone With the Wind—namely, Margaret Walker’s response to it, entitled Jubilee, and Alice Randall’s parody of the book, called The Wind Done Gone.  In his book, The Known World, Edward Jones has also provided us with an authentic voice of slaves who, up until recently, have been portrayed as racist stereotypes and who have been completely marginalized in popular literature.

        My Jim, by Nancy Rawles, is in the same category as The Known World as one of the most memorable revisionist novels that truly illuminates readers about the authentic lives of African-American slaves.  The Known World is an important, breathtaking and informative novel, but its complex chronology and plethora of characters will likely overwhelm high school students.  Beloved, by Toni Morrison, may also be too complex for use in secondary schools.  My Jim, however, is an excellent candidate for high school English.  Although it is a novel, Rawles based her facts on extensive research, making it a stellar read as well as an excellent segue into history courses.

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        Rawles’ novel revisits Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and for that reason, it is already being taught in a few schools along side the controversial classic.  Many students will already be familiar with Huckleberry Finn, and this provides a unique opportunity to examine the overt racial hostility of the time and to transition over to My Jim, which reexamines the story from a slave’s point of view.  Rawles resurrects the character of Jim, the runaway slave from Huckleberry Finn, and tells a heart-wrenching story from the viewpoint of the wife Jim was forced to leave behind.  In Twain’s classic novel, Jim ...

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