Middle Passages by Charles Johnsons - Book Report/Review Example

Number] Middle Passages by Charles Johnsons - A critical review Introduction The novel "Middle Passages" is writtenby an American scholar and novelist "Charles R. Johnsons" in 1990. Born in Evanston, Illinois in 1948, Johnson is an African American writer and his work often portrays different issue of Black's lives in America from different perspectives. His book Middle Passages won him the National Award in which he basically focuses upon the era of seventeenth century and describes several events of that time from the perspective of the African Americans (Pedersen, p225). The author has emphasizes upon wide range of issues in the novel like racial discriminations, social inequality, adjustment problems of the colonized people, however, the following discussion aims to discuss the description of the historical events in the novel. The essay strives to explain how the author tells about different historical moments and events in the novel from the perspective of the Native Americans to develop an understanding of their perspective regarding these incidents. Use of History in Middle Passages to explain minorities' perspective The novel written by Charles Johnson is an obliged modern premise that insists the reader to reassess any predetermined perceptions that they held about the history and the historical truthfulness. This novel can be viewed as a slave narrative tradition that apprehends personality development in malice of terrific odds and contains an unequivocal opinion memorandum. In the novel, he especially focuses on the authenticity of written history and argues that the use of narrative style to describe the historical events gives a fictitious impression to the event and thus, it should be avoided and discouraged. The novel replicates the traditional slave storylines in its doggedness on the importance of establishing a home as an axis of distinctiveness and ownership. In the novel, Johnson has attempted to rewrite the history with the intention to fill the gaps between what was actually happened and experienced by the Native Americans during that time and what has been described in the history that was written by the dominating cultural group and thus, many facts and realities were not described in those descriptions. The Middle Passage is the passage of tied slaves from West Africa to the Americas. The author tells the reader about the early dealings between the Africans and Europeans that there were business relations among the Europeans and African leaders who use to sale their enemies and immobilized people in exchange for exceptional gifts and money, however, later the Europeans started to repeatedly kidnap the Africans from the coastal area of Western Africa and send them to the ships that navigated them to the destination where new and free of cost workforce was needed to help alleviate the new nation. The author has informed in details about the human trading that took place during that era and specifically highlighted the motive behind this business. In 1970s, it was a common practice to sale the slaves in markets for 50 pounds that was regarded as good amount of money during that time and thus, it was considered as a beneficial line of business. The Africans themselves use to play major role in promoting the business and some of the Africans provide the slaves to the European merchants in exchange for money and these merchants sale these slaves to the American to get guns, money, textile and other goods from them. The merchants after buying the slaves arrange to move them towards America through sea (Appiah and Kwame, p37). These people were sailed to North America, South America and the Caribbean and their route was known as the middle passage. The middle passage was the suggested and required route for passing through the New World that became the part of the Atlantic slave trade. The middle passage refers to that middle leg of the elated trade triangle in which countless Africans were incarcerated, imprisoned, and confiscated from their native soils (Bhabhi, p89). The novel describes the miserable and tragic conditions that these African slaves had to face during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The author tells the experiences faced by the Native Americans in details to unfold the dark side of the picture. The readers are being told that on their way, these slaves were granted little food and had to tolerate the horrible heat as well as several infections that spread among the slaves very quickly. As a result, many of the Africans were dead due to the unhygienic circumstances. Almost fifteen percent of the Africans died at sea due to viral diseases or bad weather. It was common for hopeless men or women to try to leap. They often refuse to eat because of which these slaves were tortured by crew men and forced to eat by beating, force feeding, or the use of thumbscrews that was a torment tool used to squash thumbs and fingers, as these slaves were a costly property and it was important to maintain them alive. The detailed description of the entire slavery business and the journey of the slaves towards America through the middle passage in the novel is a brilliant attempt of the write to rewrite the history of that particular era from the perspective of the minority group. The writer very brilliantly exposes the problems of that time. In the novel, he has described several historical moments and captured certain important social and emotional issues, especially the illegal and crewel trading of slaves from Africa. The author describes the perspective of the slaves and tells about the feeling of the Native Americans when they are forcefully departed from their homeland, families and a free life. The dialogues of Calhoun, the main character of the story also explain the inner feelings of the Africans that have to face a wrenched and inhumane behaviour after they are being captured as slaves (Bhabhi, p89). The heart touching description of the miserable and horrifying journey of the Africans towards the New World is an important contribution to the literary world that intends to unfold the African perspective regarding certain historical incidents. It presents the other side of the picture that is not covered in most of the historical passages. The entire description is intended to affirm the impression that the western told history is not accurate. The author criticizes the western historians and claims that their description of several historical incidents and moments use to be biased as they overlook the minority's perspective while telling these events (Pedersen, p225). Conclusion The entire discussion could be sum up with the conclusion that the Middle Passages as an important and widely appraised attempt of an African American novelist Charles Johnson to establish the fact that a wide gap exists in the description of the historical incidents took place during the seventeenth century. The author proves that different incidents told by the dominant cultural group are not same as experienced by the Native Americans and to prove this fact; the author uses the novel as a platform to clearly present the African perspective about the history. The topic or main subject of the novel is not very unique and new because the literary work of many of the Native Americans writers and scholars use to focus on the issue of the miserable conditions of the Native Americans and the displacement problem they faced during the seventeenth century. The work of Johnsons, however, is valuable and significant because it presents in great depth and details what was experienced by the slaves, to insist what exactly happened to these people is different from what has been told by the Europeans in the history. Work Cited Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1999). "The Conservation of 'Race," Black American Literature Forum 23: 37-59 Bhabha, Homi K (1994). The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994. Johnson, Charles (1999). Middle Passage, New York: Atheneum, 1990 Pedersen, Carl (1993). "Middle Passages: Representation of the Slave Trade in Caribbean and African- American Literature." Massachusetts Review 34.2 (1993): 225-39 Read More