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Didacticism in Harriet Martineau's antislavery narratives
Abstract
British writer Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) believed that literature is meant to educate readers. One lesson she sought to teach was that slavery is evil and should be abolished. Her anti-slavery narratives are "Demerara" (1832), parts of Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838), The Martyr Age of the United States (1838), The Hour and the Man (1841), and a segment of Martineau's Autobiography (1855). Because her beliefs about slavery became increasingly complex, the antislavery narratives which convey them provide useful insights into the evolving rhetoric and form of her didactic narratives. We can watch her narratives and ideas change in tandem. Her didacticism is especially apparent in her characters, whom she usually develops thematically or as embodiments of ideas. The necessarian philosophy which shaped much of Martineau's writing posited laws governing every aspect of human life. The important principle of cause and effect maintains that circumstances or outside influences are the exclusive shapers of human character, which led Martineau to develop characters primarily as representatives of a group, such as slaves, which has been influenced by particular circumstances, such as slavery. Early in her fight against slavery, her application of necessarian theory was severe and uncompromising, as in "Demerara" where the characters are developed almost exclusively on a thematic level, as products of slavery. Her first-hand observations of slavery during her two-year sojourn in the United States (1834-36) forced her to admit the inadequacy of abstract theory to explain human behavior. Most of the characters in the American books are developed thematically, to illustrate necessarian ideas, but she also created some who embody a belief in individual potential and responsibility. Further, a few characters function mimetically, as vivid representations of people who could actually exist. Finally, in The Hour and the Man Martineau attempted to reconcile the necessarian and individualist interpretations of human nature by embodying both in one character who is developed only on the thematic level.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
Benacquista, Michelle Annette Long, "Didacticism in Harriet Martineau's antislavery narratives" (1990). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9121910.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9121910