REIMAGING THE SLAVE NARRATIVE: VALERIE MARTIN’S PROPERTY (2003)

This course begins with a historical overview of slavery in America from the seventeenth century to the Civil War. We will then use a discussion of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) as springboard for examining Valerie Martin’s masterful, award-winning novel Property (2003)—which Toni Morrison described as “a marvel.” Martin takes an unflinching look at the impact of slavery on the mindset of white slave-owners and at the destructive impact of this institution on both blacks and whites.