Topic
Joel Chandler Harris’ Legends of the Old Plantation
Instructions
How do the tales that you read from Joel Chandler Harris’s Legends from an Old Plantation reflect the definitions of “Happy Darky Myth” and “Plantation Fiction” that you read from The Encyclopedia of Southern Literature? In what ways do these tales romanticize the notion of a glorious antebellum (prewar) Southern past?
What parallels can you draw between the legends, fables, and tales taken from Joel Chandler Harris’s Legends from an Old Plantation and the myths from Africa that you read last week? Think especially of the orality of the tales and of the sub-genre of Trickster tales. Why would trickster tales have a wide appeal among subjugated peoples, such as African slaves on an old southern plantation?
Answer preview
In Joel Chandler Harris “Legends of the Old Plantation” the author has presented tales that represent African-American culture in such a manner that an individual is able to find the Old South’s power structures. The stories clearly explain that African-Americans have been facing numerous challenges since the whites view themselves as superior human beings. For example, the stories illustrate the oppression and segregation that African-Americans have been facing in their daily routines. In these tales, the most prominent character, Brer Rabbit, is normally deemed to a rebellion’s literary incarnation in spirit among the African-American demographic.
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