Table of contents

1.  Introduction  1

1.1  About this term paper  1

1.2  About the novel  2

2.  A working definition of “folklore  4

3.  Folkloric elements found in Jubilee  5

3.1  Religion  5

3.2  Songs  8

3.3  Folk Beliefs and Conjure  11

3.4  Medicine and Nursing  12

3.5  Cooking and Food  13

4.  Conclusion  14

5.  Bibliography  15

1. Introduction

1.1 About this term paper

On nearly 500 pages Margaret Walker tells the story of her great-grandmother. Jubilee is the story about Vyry, a black female slave who longs for freedom and finally gains it, at least officially, after the Civil War years. Besides this individual destiny, the novel contains historical sections and information about political developments during that time, several complex characters in addition to Vyry and inside views even of white characters, detailed descriptions of the slaves’ everyday life, their family structures, their language and their hierarchies. My term paper will deal with those elements which turn Jubilee into a folk novel, i.e. an account of African American traditions which were passed from generation to generation orally.

It was clear to me that Walker had intended to write a kind of folk novel when I read her dedication: She dedicated her first and only novel to her family, especially to her four children so “that they may know something of their heritage”. Apparently, family boundaries and traditions do not only play a major role in the novel but also did in Walker’s own life. After reading Walker’s essay “How I wrote Jubilee” there was further evidence found for my initial intuition. There she mentions: “I always intended Jubilee to be a folk novel based on folk material: folk sayings, folk belief, folkways.” (Walker 1973: 62). Furthermore, the origin of Jubilee is a piece of oral tradition itself. According to the same essay, her grandmother had told her stories about slave life in Georgia ever since she was a child (Walker 1973: 51). As an adult she carried out a long-lasting research because she was determined “to authenticate the story I had heard from my grandmother’s lips” (Walker 1973: 56).

The task of this term paper will be to find instances where its characteristics as a folk novel become obvious. To fulfil this task I will begin with a summary of the novel and I will provide a working definition of the term “folklore”. Afterwards there will be a closer investigation of some folkloric categories which are represented in Jubilee.

1

1.2 About the novel

Walker’s novel belongs to the genre of so-called neo-slave narratives. This genre shares features with traditional slave narratives but also modifies customs. For example, Walker retained the chronological tripartite structure of the slave narrative (Bondage, Escape, Freedom); But while most slave narratives have a first person narrator, we find an authorial narrator, explicit and overt, in Jubilee. The main general difference between the two genres is that a neo-slave narrative is told by a contemporary writer, not by a slave directly. With a retrospective look at the time of slavery, especially female African American novelists tried to rewrite partial historiography and created stories about slavery from the perspective of black women.

As mentioned above, the narrative is divided into three sections. Each contains eighteen to twenty-two chapters. The first section deals with a period during the antebellum era (1839-1860). It begins with the death of Vyry’s mother, Sis Hetta, who was “given” to young master John Dutton at an early age. She dies in her twentyninth year and gave birth to fifteen children, all of them became his slaves, some of them, like Yyry, were his own offspring. After the death of Hetta, Vyry has to work in the “Big House” of the Dutton plantation as a personal servant of Miss Lillian, the daughter of Master John and his wife Miss Salina, who the slaves also call Big Missy. Vyry has difficulties to adjust to the work and often fails to satisfy her mistress. The results are hard punishments. These punishments also occur because Big Missy cannot cope with the fact that Vyry and Lilian look alike. Vyry has such a light skin that she is often taken for white.

Aunt Sally, the main cook in the Big House, teaches Vyry everything she knows and acts like a mother to her. Later on, Aunt Sally is sold and Vyry takes over the responsibility of cooking at a young age. During the following years she experiences dramatic events: Many slaves close to her die, she is forced to attend a public execution of two female slaves and she sees how her half-sister Lucy is branded because she had tried to escape.

2

A slight happiness grows as Vyry meets Randall Ware, a free black man who sometimes works for Marster John. He promises to buy her freedom if she marries him. They see each other secretly during the nights; the cry of the whippoorwhill is their sign. Vyry bears three of his children, only two of them alive. Randall tries to free Vyry without success and Master John refuses to let her go. When Vyry attempts an escape together with her children she is caught by overseer Grimes and is severely beaten.

The second section of Jubilee is about the Civil War years (1861-1865). The Dutton Plantation experiences many losses. Marster John breaks his leg in a carriage accident, the leg becomes infected and he dies. Lillian’s husband and brother both die on the battlefield. The turbulences of wartime enable many slaves to run away. However, Vyry and the other house servants remain on the plantation. Towards the end of the war, Big Missy has a stroke and dies, too. Finally, soldiers arrive and announce the Emancipation Proclamation, i.e. they set the slaves free. Most of them depart immediately, leaving Vyry and her children alone with Miss Lillian. That night, Vyry is attacked, but a man named Innis Brown saves her. They find Lillian later on who was attacked, too, and got hit on her head. After that, Lillian seems to have lost her mind and reverts back to her childhood memories. Vyry cares for her and when relatives of Lillian come to take her away she marries Innis Brown.

The third section of the narrative describes events during the time of Reconstruction (1866-1870). Vyry and her new husband move to Alabama, a shared dream of a farm of their own on their minds. The first house they build gets flooded, the second is owned by a landlord who cheats them, the third is burned by the Ku Klux Klan. Vyry is now afraid to build another house. She goes into town everyday to sell food and one day she helps a woman to deliver a child. The white neighbours agree that they need a good granny as a midwife for the women in town. All of them help Vyry’s family to build a house and finally they feel welcome.

Vyry would not have married Innis Brown if she not had thought Randall was dead. To her great surprise, one day he walks up to her house. He fulfils one of Vyry’s greatest wishes and enables their children, Jim and Minna, to go to school. He still

3