The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman: The Plantation

Book 3, titled “The Plantation,” is distinctively different from the past sections of the narrative. Jane is not exercising the job of an observer or a direct participant in the events that unfold during her stay at the Samson’s plantation; she has left her original role to adopt the task of tell-teller, a narrator. I had noticed in Book 2 that Jane had developed a preference for foreshadowing events she would later describe in more detail; however, in Book 3, she narrates the chronicles with more care, and dramatizes the story with the addition of pauses meant to generate suspense. I find this to be an important observation because it could imply that Jane has acquired a higher level of control or maturity both in the present time (as she narrates her story) and in her past self. This chapter, unlike the first two sections of the novel, reveals little information about Jane’s personality, the only piece of relevant and personal information being that she succeeds in her search for religion and finds strength in the Lord. Consequently, I believe Gaines purpose with this chapter was not to conglomerate and personify in Jane’s character the plagues of post-war America, but rather to vividly expose the horrors of racism, in all its shapes, forms and consequences.

The reader is confronted with various racial disputes: white overseer over black employee, white supremacy over land and women, segregation based of financial power {ex. Jimmy Caya was white trash for Jules Raynard, “Trash will be trash anywhere, anytime, but me and you, we know better” (198)}, Creole versus the pure white. All these conflicts end in some sort of tragedy that aggravated the life at the Samsons, which can be taken as a minuscule representation of the Southern society. Tom Joe, the overseer, incited two of the main quarrels that unfold in the chapter (the race and beating up Timmy) and the reader is exposed to the cruel conditions and unfair treatment blacks must endure without a proper assessment of justice. Hatred towards colored skin always trumped reason and fairness, no matter which party was right: in both quarrels Tom Joe kept his job because of his authority as an overseer, while the colored employees and Timmy had to leave the plantation.

“And what white man would put him in jail or keep him in jail after what Timmy had let happen to Tee Bob?” (153)

“…he hated the Samson in Timmy much as he hated the nigger in him” (152).

“He knowed Timmy had to respect Miss Amma Dean just like he had to respect every white lady or white man” (152).

Society’s “white” elite also had significant cracks, as depicted by the Creole community, that often led to quarrels and violent events between the bands. The Creole considered themselves a superior class, thus they shunned anyone who left or wasn’t part of the Creole community. The pure whites saw them, however, as common blacks, as objects put there so that whites could dominate them in all ways possible. 

“No matter how white you was if you didn’t have Creole background they didn’t want you there” (167).

“But she is there for that and nothing else” (183).

Gaines exposes the multiple levels of racism to establish the ridiculousness of using skin color as a means for segregation, as there are racial conflicts even within the black and white community. Furthermore, he elaborates the disputes, giving each of them a proper space within his novel, to emphasize that this radical and mindless racism was a thing of the past and that opposing abandonment and detachment of obsolete practices and rituals only leads to sorrow and death. Tee Bob’s character serves as evidence of this changing society: he died because he was unable to find peace in a society that valued color over love.

“We tried to make him follow a set of rules our people gived us long ago” (204).

“The sound of his grandfather talking to his daddy and his uncle come out every wall; the sound of all of them talking to him…” (206).

Works Cited

Gaines, Ernest J. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Bantam Books, June 1972. 

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University of North Florida. (2017). Rice Cultivation: Life at Governor James Grant's Mount Pleasant Plantation. Retrieved from https://www.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/Plantations/plantations/Rice_Cultivation.htm

Word Press. (2017). Retrieved from https://allyouneedisbiology.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/fotolia_original_38380192_x2.jpg