They have one son, Tee Bob, although Robert Samson had another son, Timmy, with a black woman on the plantation, Verda. In the final chapter of the book, Jane describes a boy named Jimmy Aaron, whom the whole plantation hopes will become the "one" who will save them all. Stephanie Y. Evans suggests that to see Miss Jane solely as a representative character for a people’s collective experience, is to condone the dehumanization which was enforced by Southern American prejudices as she argues that “Self-definition is vital in a country where black people are often portrayed as less than human”[8]. The journey took her from being set free as a slave at 10 years old through 100 years, from reconstruction to the Civil Rights era, at whic. The assertion that she will “carry it to [her] grave” (242) reflects the individual impact of each slave’s experiences, and the mental and physical scars they leave behind. She suggests that “The “neo-slave narrative” has become one of the most widely read and discussed forms of African American literature. The social mores of their society—particularly segregation—do not allow them to be genuine friends. it is during the civil rights time. she is over 100 years old. Patterson, Robert J. I read this book in two sittings. I RARELY rate a book as a 5 star read, but this one well deserves it. Jane soon marries Joe Pittman (without an official ceremony). it is during the civil rights time. Gaines himself described the way in which the novel was originally intended to be presented as one person’s life story, narrated through the eyes of a multitude of acquaintances and witnesses. Jane's obstinacy persists for a few weeks until she and Ned are completely exhausted from walking. Cluveau and Jane essentially are friends who speak on almost a daily basis, drink coffee together, and even share food. It is tempting to argue that Gaines’s fictional rendering of a black, Southern woman’s autobiography is primarily a portrayal of the wider black Southern experience, as opposed to the telling of her individual experience. I remember watching the movie "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" with Cicely Tyson. Miss Jane’s story is not only “all of their stories” (viii). Miss Jane Pittman was a hoot though. I sort of remember the movie was good. I literally almost couldn't put it down. This is a very impressive epic adorned with humor and founded in the lessons of overcoming tragedy either through battle or sheer resilience. A rough read about what it was like for those freed by the emancipation proclamation and what life after included. The first morning away, a group of "Patrollers," local white trash who used to hunt slaves, comes upon them and kills everyone but Jane and a very young boy Ned, whom they did not find. 7 In 1853, with the publication of his novel Clotel, William Wells Brown took African American narrative in a direction that was new and dangerous. When the book ends, in the 1960's, abruptly, I was left gasping, thinking, WHY???? This reflects the powerlessness of black women in the American South, as they are forced to watch helplessly as their male loved ones are made to suffer injury and death. Bone raises her pay to ten dollars because she is doing as much work as the other women. At first when Jane Pittman didn't achive arriving in Colorado I was concerned with what the author was going to do next and how he could make her into a heroine. The local whites fear Ned's rhetoric, and therefore they hire a Cajun that Jane knows, Albert Cluveau, to shoot Ned, which Cluveau does. Bader, Philip. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1974 American television film based on the novel of the same name by Ernest J. Gaines.The film was broadcast on CBS.. With it, Gaines retells approximately one hundred years of American history with attention to the African-American experience. The black struggle for self-definition was as predominant in the South as the struggle for unified equality. There were times when you heart ached because of all the suffering, and despair. The importance of Miss Jane being recognised as a defined individual in her own right becomes even more predominant when set against the backdrop of the influence of Black Nationalism. Indeed, the practice of slavery which saw blacks dehumanized and reduced to one single mass of anonymous figures, led to the rise of civil rights movements which adapted but emulated this collectivisation of the blacks even in their attempts to overturn this oppression of self-definition. by Bantam. In between the chapters of her life, the present-day struggles of Blacks in Bayonne, urged on by Jimmy, are dramatized. This book focused on Miss Jane Pittman, who through her narrative, described what happened through different time periods, including slavery up until the Civil Rights period. He states how “At first, a group of people were going to tell about one person’s life, and through telling this one person’s life, they were going to cover a hundred years of history, superstitions, religion, philosophy, folk tales, lies”[4]. The novel opens with a description of the editor who located Miss Jane Pittman and recorded her story. How could you not weep at the loss of her only "son". However, it also serves to separate “their stories” (viii), as they each become self-defined individuals who choose their own paths, embrace their own personalities, and deal with the trauma of slavery in their own ways. How does one write a novel that encompasses the entire black experience from slavery to the Civil Rights Era? I'm wondering why it took me so long to read it. This indicates that her experiences were not only her own, but were instead communal experiences, which could just as easily by told by another member of the black community who had lived through them. Rosemary K. Coffey and Elizabeth F. Howard argue that “Miss Jane Pittman typifies generations of solid, long suffering black women, the ordinary unsung heroines of a century of slow change”[3]. Overall this is a great book. Life is tough during Reconstruction, but gets worse during the Jim Crow period. She tells him her story dating back to her earliest memories before slavery ended. ; 2 Gaines insists on this in every interview. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts, and inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters as a Chevalier.