The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman 467are nonexistent. The powerful white community is
not only ignorant of the need to establish human
bonds with former slaves but is also oblivious to
the suffering it incurs for adopting and participat-
ing in racist ideology. For example, Robert Samson
uses Verda sexually and denies the existence of his
“half-nigger” son Timmy, even though Timmy is
more like Robert than Robert’s legitimate son Tee
Bob is. Although Tee Bob adores Timmy and the
two are inseparable, Robert has no qualms about
sending Timmy off the plantation even after the
overseer Tom Joe has beaten Timmy cruelly and
unjustly. The contradictions inherent in this ideol-
ogy finally unravel in the fractured consciousness
of Tee Bob who, unable to reconcile the apparent
acceptability of being allowed to have a sexual rela-
tionship with the mulatto Mary Agnes LeFebre
but not to love her or marry her, commits suicide.
After Tee Bob’s suicide, all Robert is concerned
about is taking revenge on the equally innocent
Mary Agnes. Only Jules Reynard’s calm control
and threat of exposure prevents Robert from tak-
ing vengeance. As Reynard and Miss Jane Pittman
discuss the tragedy of Tee Bob’s suicide they realize
that “he was bound to kill himself one day for our
sins.” When Miss Pittman feels sorry for Tee Bob
and says “Poor Tee Bob,” Reynard reminds her,
“No, poor us,” exposing how everyone is a loser in
a divided community.
The fact that bonds of friendship do exist and
can exist among people divided artificially along
color lines is brought home by the hit man Albert
Cluveau’s feeble attempts to protect Ned. Lacking
the courage, wherewithal, and initiative needed to
defy the orders of his powerful white employers, he
feels compelled to reveal to Jane his orders to kill
Ned. That communal bonds of friendship do exist
among blacks and whites who live together and
that such bonds are short-circuited by racist ideol-
ogy that reduces communal bonds to the lowest
common denominator of survival is also revealed
by Cluveau’s clinical execution of unethical orders.
Finally, the fact that economic wealth is not what
determines the strength and health of an individual
and her/his community is revealed when, at the end
of the novel, the reader realizes that the childless,
penniless orphan Miss Jane Pittman has more fam-
ily, love, and respect than the powerful plantation
owner, Robert Samson, with all his wealth, progeny,
and financially dependent ex-slaves.
Su SenapatiStaGeS oF liFe in The Autobiography of Miss
Jane Pittman
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is divided
into four discrete sections, War Years, Reconstruc-
tion, Plantation, and Quarter. These correspond
with the stages of African-American history. Miss
Jane Pittman’s life can be divided into five sections
that may be explained using psychologist Abraham
Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs and ethical
development, a movement from a preoccupation
with the self to the community. These stages of
Miss Jane Pittman’s life are (1) Freedom March, (2)
Raising Ned and Losing Ned, (3) Finding Love and
Losing Love, (4) Recovery, (5) Community. During
all the stages of her life, Miss Jane is preoccupied
with responsibilities of survival and safety, but her
self-respect, tenacity, ethical acumen, pragmatism,
and ability to overcome challenges and solve prob-
lems, even linked to her sworn enemies, make her an
unparalleled leader.
During the first stage of her life, Miss Jane has
no name, lineage, or history that defines her as a per-
son, but she has a commodity value that translates
into endless work. Once emancipated, her service
value is removed and the market economy tries to
destroy and dump the devalued commodity that was
once a slave. Hunting and killing of freed slaves trav-
eling north thus becomes a common phenomenon
during Reconstruction.
While the older slaves on the Bryant planta-
tion prefer the familiarity of known hardships, and
choose to stay behind, the younger ones, including
Miss Jane, choose to leave and venture into unknown
geographies. But every one of them, even the strong
leader, Big Laura, is hunted down and brutally mur-
dered; only child Jane and baby Ned survive.
However, Jane’s recognizable life as a human
begins before she is freed, when a Yankee soldier,
Colonel Brown, names her Jane after his own
daughter. Colonel Brown may be seen as an adop-
tive parent; although he does not provide any of the
necessities an adoptive parent provides, he gives Jane