Cooper and Johnson

Anna Julia Cooper argues that “an authentic portrait, at once aesthetic and true to life, presenting the black man as a free American citizen, not the humble slave of Uncle Tom’s Cabin- but the man, divinely struggling and aspiring yet tragically warped and distorted by the adverse winds of circumstance, has not yet been painted” (382). Before this passage Cooper writes that the Black Woman is not well portrayed in American literature either. She does not blame white people for this. It is impossible for a “Caucasian barrister” to fully put themselves in the place of a black man or woman. Furthermore, Cooper states that the African American race has “yet found no mouthpiece of its own to unify and perpetuate its wondrous whisperings…” (383).

Under Cooper’s The Negro as Presented in American Literature, she divides authors into two distinct groups. The first group being those who write to please or because they please. This group simply writes what they see. They have nothing to prove. They allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Cooper says that Shakespeare was this type of writer. The second group, Cooper explains, “belongs to the preachers…all who have an idea to propagate… all those writers with a purpose or lesson” (381). What concerns me with Cooper’s grouping of authors is that she is doing to authors what she is telling them not to do. Cooper is generalizing all author’s writing styles and placing them into vague groups. This may be a stretch but isn’t she arguing that those authors should not generalize the African American race into stereotypes?

While I do understand her point of view, striving for a clear depiction of African Americans in American literature, I don’t not understand why she places all authors in one of two groups.

Johnson opens by stating that “it matters little to what race an author’s heroine belongs, if he makes her character distinct, unique and natural” (385). Johnson believes that the portrayal of the Indian girl is much too vague and unoriginal. She argues that authors overlook tribal distinction. The Indian girl is never given a last name. She is suicidal. She is always in love with a young white hero who she cannot have. Additionally, the author’s portrayal of the Indian girl “get herself despised by her own nation and disliked by the reader” (387).

As I said above, is Johnson not generalizing multiple authors into a single group that uses this type of description for their heroine? Johnson is generalizing authors into groups in the same way she argues that authors generalize the Indian female. I am not saying that I think it is right for the Indian race to be lumped together. I am saying that Johnson’s argument is somewhat hypocritical.

Considering that both of these essays were written prior to the familiarization of the term “feminism” I think that both Cooper and Johnson should be considered proto feminists. Johnson and Cooper establish the existence of feminist concepts before the term was well known. Both authors elaborate on the lack of literature pertaining to women: African American or Indian.

Works Cited

• Cooper, Anna Julia. “Excerpts from A Voice From the South” (1892). Wielding the Pen: Writings on Authorship by American Women of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Anne E. Boyd. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U P, 2009. 379-384. 
• Johnson, E. Pauline. “A Strong Race Opinion: On the Indian Girl in Modern Fiction” (1895). Wielding the Pen: Writings on Authorship by American Women of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Anne E. Boyd. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U P, 2009. 385-389.