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Chapter 9. “No one can imagine my feelings”

The rhetoric of race, slavery, and emotional difference in the antebellum South
  • Erin Austin Dwyer
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A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery

Abstract

This chapter details the ideological foundations of the emotional norms of slavery and debates over whether those practices and feelings were tied to race or to slave status. It examines how theories of racialized emotional difference circulated, and the proslavery ramifications of those ideas, as well as how formerly enslaved people used the medium of slave narratives to refute white supremacist ideas about their affective inferiority and subvert the expectations of sentimental audiences. Abolitionists’ argument that emotional differences were rooted in slave status, not race, jeopardized proslavery ideology and individual slaveholders, as it meant that after Emancipation, black people would expect the same emotional liberty as free people.

Abstract

This chapter details the ideological foundations of the emotional norms of slavery and debates over whether those practices and feelings were tied to race or to slave status. It examines how theories of racialized emotional difference circulated, and the proslavery ramifications of those ideas, as well as how formerly enslaved people used the medium of slave narratives to refute white supremacist ideas about their affective inferiority and subvert the expectations of sentimental audiences. Abolitionists’ argument that emotional differences were rooted in slave status, not race, jeopardized proslavery ideology and individual slaveholders, as it meant that after Emancipation, black people would expect the same emotional liberty as free people.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. General introduction xi
  5. Slavery, literature and the emotions 1
  6. Part One. Slavery, sentiment and affect
  7. Chapter 1. Slavery, sentimentality and the abolition of affect 18
  8. Chapter 2. Race and affect in Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie, ou L’esclavage aux Etats‑Unis 34
  9. Chapter 3. Touching difference and colonial space 50
  10. Part Two. Slavery between literary codes
  11. Chapter 4. In search of home 78
  12. Chapter 5. Showing and feeling the atrocities of slavery 95
  13. Chapter 6. Politics and faith, slavery and abolition in nineteenth-century Brazilian literature 110
  14. Chapter 7. Melodramatic tableaux vivants 136
  15. Part Three. Pity, identification and interpellation
  16. Chapter 8. Before sentimental empire 158
  17. Chapter 9. “No one can imagine my feelings” 173
  18. Chapter 10. Orientalism, slavery and emotion 191
  19. Chapter 11. Haunting slavery 207
  20. Part Four. Affective ties
  21. Chapter 12. Testamentary manumission and emotional bonds in eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue 226
  22. Chapter 13. Affection amidst domination in a post-slavery society 239
  23. Chapter 14. Bárbora and Jau 254
  24. Part Five. First-person voices
  25. Chapter 15. Scenes of emotion in French early-modern travel writing from the Caribbean 272
  26. Chapter 16. Fear and love in Matanzas 289
  27. Chapter 17. The blood-stained-gate 307
  28. Volume 1. Biographical descriptions 325
  29. Name index 331
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.xxxvi.09dwy

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. General introduction xi
  5. Slavery, literature and the emotions 1
  6. Part One. Slavery, sentiment and affect
  7. Chapter 1. Slavery, sentimentality and the abolition of affect 18
  8. Chapter 2. Race and affect in Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie, ou L’esclavage aux Etats‑Unis 34
  9. Chapter 3. Touching difference and colonial space 50
  10. Part Two. Slavery between literary codes
  11. Chapter 4. In search of home 78
  12. Chapter 5. Showing and feeling the atrocities of slavery 95
  13. Chapter 6. Politics and faith, slavery and abolition in nineteenth-century Brazilian literature 110
  14. Chapter 7. Melodramatic tableaux vivants 136
  15. Part Three. Pity, identification and interpellation
  16. Chapter 8. Before sentimental empire 158
  17. Chapter 9. “No one can imagine my feelings” 173
  18. Chapter 10. Orientalism, slavery and emotion 191
  19. Chapter 11. Haunting slavery 207
  20. Part Four. Affective ties
  21. Chapter 12. Testamentary manumission and emotional bonds in eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue 226
  22. Chapter 13. Affection amidst domination in a post-slavery society 239
  23. Chapter 14. Bárbora and Jau 254
  24. Part Five. First-person voices
  25. Chapter 15. Scenes of emotion in French early-modern travel writing from the Caribbean 272
  26. Chapter 16. Fear and love in Matanzas 289
  27. Chapter 17. The blood-stained-gate 307
  28. Volume 1. Biographical descriptions 325
  29. Name index 331
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Heruntergeladen am 26.12.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/chlel.xxxvi.09dwy/html
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