Our group presented about the United States slave story and songs. From these story and songs we learned how strong slaves’ wish is to run away from master, and to get freedom.
Throughout 2-day presentation, we have a taste of different oratures in different historical stage, with different background. All of them contribute to the development of literature. I believe that comparing different types of oratures would help us to understand deeper about the pieces. So I’m going to compare the United States slave story and songs to German folktale, English folktale as well as Irish folktale from different perspectives, such as the use of language, the religion, their content, and their purposes.
Comparing with other oratures, we can find that slave story and songs have features in the use of language. In the “All God’s Chillen Had Wings”, it repeated mentions that the driver can’t understand what slaves are talking about because slaves are using their own language to avoid that drivers know their conversation. Additionally, when looking at the story and songs, especially “All God’s Chillen Had Wings” and “Promises of Freedom”, we would find that there are lots of words are not standard English. That’s because when using English, slaves mix their own language with English. This mixture is still in use today, which is called “Negro dialect”. As for German, English and Irish folktale, the language used is more understandability and straight forward.
Also, slave story and songs are special because of slaves’ unique religion. According to Minji’s introduction, we learned that African traditional religion consists of Islam and Christ. The characteristic of African religion is animism. As for “All God’s Chillen Had Wings”, it is based on the religious legend that Africans had a special God given ability to fly when they were still living on the continent of Africa. It’s just like what saying in the text “once all Africans could fly like birds, but owing to their many transgressions, their wings were taken away”. For the slave songs and spirituals, most are full of biblical allusions. Take “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as an example. For the sentence “I looked over Jordan and what did I see”, “Jordan” is a river that appears in the Bible. This is an image that crossing Jordan means going to heaven and escaping from slavery. Precisely, because of the religion in pluralism, there were a large number of excellent works during slavery period. In contrast, even though German folktale, English folktale as well as Irish folktale are based on religious belief, they don’t show much religious allusion but describe lots of magical situation. For example, there would be witch, elfin, and magic in these stories.
Comparing the content between folktale and slave story as well as songs, we can find that folktale focus on the relaxed topic to teach people simple truth. However, when it comes to slave story and songs, they describe a painful period in the history and how slaves attempt to get freedom and right.
As for the purpose of slave story and songs, obviously, it’s to express that slaves long for free life and civil right. Somehow, these kinds of stories and songs not only the spiritual sustenance of slaves’ life, but also let people learned what happened at that period later on. On the other hand, folktale has the totally different purpose. As a type of literature especially written for children, folktale imparts moral values and wisdom to children, also it instills codes of conduct for acceptable behavior in the community and the society. Therefore, folktale owns significant value for the existence.
All in all, by comparing different types of oratures, we learned that each has its own merits. No matter what types of the oratures are, they all play significant roles in the literature world.
You highlight some really important points about each of the oratures you chose to write on. I’m interested particularly in your reading of the differences between the two. You take into account the intended audiences for each, as well as their seriousness, if I can call it that. That the slaves are directly referencing their physical, emotional and mental sufferings is quite understandable given the situation to which they were forced to adapt. However, I wouldn’t necessarily underestimate the implicit suffering (though on a totally other level) that might exist in the other tales. Class is a big part of these German, English, and Irish folktales, and their intents aren’t always simply to entertain, but to consolidate an ethos for the respective ethnic communities. I believe we touched on this, but the German tales have a very implicit Protestant coloring to their moral structure (though it gets a bit complicated): the idea of working hard in order to gain a better, more ideal life in which work doesn’t figure, looms large, even though there is trickery involved here. In fact, it appears as though it is a sort of given. In this sense, the notion of escaping one’s own suffering on earth or on the farm in a peasant village, and making it to heaven, the palace or some communion with the Divine, is common to both oratures.
In terms of writing, as you move forward, I would suggest you pay attention to those moments in which you can trim the fat, so to speak. That is, what isn’t entirely necessary to your argument? Can you cut it? If your argument won’t change at all if a sentence is cut, I would suggest cutting it. Make it lean, and efficient. You want to communicate your argument and/or interpretation as cleanly as possible. Most of your second paragraph, for example, could be cut. That orature ‘contributed to the development of literature’ doesn’t really affect your argument, unless your argument is how oral traditions can be found in the modern Novel, for example. Other than that, great post. 5/5