Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands - Assignment Example

“Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands” The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands is an autobiography that demonstrates the actions and activities of the Victorian period-the time it was written. It was authored by Mary Seacole, a Jamaican-born who became famous because of the work she was doing as a nurse during the Crimean (Seacole 15). The book has received universal acclaim as one of the most comprehensible and fulfilling autobiographies of the 19th Century. This is attributed to the fact that the book revolves around a culturally sanctioned and self-reliant feminine. Mrs. Seacole fashioned her own identity despite the fact that other people assigned her other identities.

This paper shall seek to address how she thought of herself in relation to the world, as well as how other people viewed her. It will also examine the ways in which Mary Seacole demarcated herself in terms of her imperial and national identities. In the book, Mary Seacole has depicted herself as a self-willed woman who cannot be brought down due to her race and economic status. In as much as she was a Creole, a half-cast between a Scottish father and a Jamaican mother, she was determined to go extra miles and help people.

She has managed to construct her racial image to the readers carefully, as well as those whom she came in contact with during her journeys. She makes minimal reference to her skin color except when people around her point it out. She lives her life normally without making her skin color an issue; while those living around her have an issue with her color. This is best demonstrated when she boarded a ship from Navy Bay to Jamaica with several Americans on board (Seacole 90). The Americans complained, and the ship had to go back to Navy Bay so that she could catch a British ship.

This showed the racial hatred that the white Americans had towards other minority groups in the 19th century. While in London; she was denied a chance to go to help the soldiers during the Crimean war by the Nightingale Nurse Sisters’. Her denial was based on the fact that there was bias against women as far as medicine was concerned. Women were not considered to have known anything regarding medicine; instead, the profession was considered to belong to men. Another reason that could have led to her denial could be that she was a Creole and not a Briton, and they were discriminating against her.

However, she managed to raise funds and sponsored herself to the battle fields in order to help the wounded soldiers (Seacole 35). At the battle fields, Seacole proved her critics wrong since she managed to take exceptional care of the soldiers better than the Nightingale Nurse Sisters’. This is because she applied the recipes for both medicine and food her mother taught her. In this aspect, she represented the Jamaican culture in her. Seacole was appreciated and liked a lot by the soldiers.

In as much as Seacole dressed like a British woman, her actions were typical of a Jamaican woman. For instance, during that time, it was more than an impossible for a middle-class British woman to leave her family and sponsor herself to the battlefields in order to help the wounded soldiers. At the end of the Crimean battle, she also accepted the fact that she was financially challenged and sought the help of the soldiers (Seacole 78). This shows that she was a humble woman who could proudly tell her problems and seek assistance, something a middle-class British would not do at that time.

Being of Scottish and Jamaican descent, Mrs. Seacole occasionally attempted to relate instantaneously to both the white and black people. However, in most instances in the book, she has presented herself to be of a higher class compared to the slave blacks. Additionally, she equates herself to the white people. This is demonstrated when she asserted that her good Scotch blood was coursing through her veins (Seacole 11). It could also be argued that her mixed raced tore her between the black world and the white world.

This explains why she paid minimal attention to her race. Her main aim, in the book, was to focus on the pleasant things she had done, as well as her achievements; and not the color of her skin. She stated that she did not like staying in any place for long, and this could be because she felt like she does not fit anywhere as a result of her mixed race. In conclusion, Mrs. Seacole had her own reasons for not identifying herself as a woman of black or white race. However, she makes it clear that her book was a testimony of her willpower to break through economical, racial and cultural barriers placed before her in life.

Works Cited Seacole, Mary. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands. London: Penguin Classics, 2005. Print.