The Haunting (Dis)obedience of Jezebel in Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl
Location
Beaman A&B
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
24-9-2012 11:00 AM
Description
Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Cather’s final novel, was published in 1940, and marks Cather’s return to her home of Virginia to explore the oldest, most intimate, and uncivil narrative of the South: slavery. Canny and modern in its playfulness with form, Sapphira and the Slave Girl is a reflection of the way in which the memory of slavery, and the postcolonial discourses this memory constructs, are at once intensely political and fiercely imaginative, predicated on the inherent anxiety of returning home. Linking the wholly private pursuit of writing with larger discursive political practices, I suggest that Sapphia and the Slave Girl is a critique of the transgressive ideology of empire, encouraging readers to recognize the way in which racial anxiety is fueled by a discourse of civility to create a haunted vision of the South.
Recommended Citation
Gustke, Charmion, "The Haunting (Dis)obedience of Jezebel in Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl" (2012). Humanities Symposium. 32.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2012/2012/32
The Haunting (Dis)obedience of Jezebel in Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl
Beaman A&B
Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Cather’s final novel, was published in 1940, and marks Cather’s return to her home of Virginia to explore the oldest, most intimate, and uncivil narrative of the South: slavery. Canny and modern in its playfulness with form, Sapphira and the Slave Girl is a reflection of the way in which the memory of slavery, and the postcolonial discourses this memory constructs, are at once intensely political and fiercely imaginative, predicated on the inherent anxiety of returning home. Linking the wholly private pursuit of writing with larger discursive political practices, I suggest that Sapphia and the Slave Girl is a critique of the transgressive ideology of empire, encouraging readers to recognize the way in which racial anxiety is fueled by a discourse of civility to create a haunted vision of the South.
Comments
Convo: AL