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visible in their outward appearance. The elder children, Iola and Harry, were educated in the North and their
African ancestry (called "negro blood" in the book) was hidden from them. When Eugene suddenly died of yellow fever, his cousin, Alfred Lorraine, had a judge declare Marie's manumission void. Hence, Marie and her children were legally considered slaves and the heritage fell to Lorraine and other distant relatives. Lorraine sent his agent to the northern seminary where Iola was preparing for her graduation and defending the institution of slavery in discussions with her fellow students. Deceitfully being told that her father was dying, Iola followed the agent to her home, where she learned that she was a slave and was sold away from her mother.
209:, Iola's brother. Like Iola, he is educated in the North. The African ancestry of their mother is concealed from the children, and they are not allowed to pass their vacations at home, spending that time instead together with the parents in a northern holiday resort. When he learns that his father has died and his mother and sister are enslaved, he becomes seriously ill from the shock. When he recovers, the Civil War has begun and he decides to enlist in a colored regiment, making the recruiting officer wonder why a white man should want to do that.
215:, the man who Iola finally marries. He was born into slavery as the son of an enslaved mother of predominantly European ancestry and a white man. After emancipation, his mother invested her hard earnings to pay for his studies. He graduated as a medical doctor and afterwards met his white grandmother, the rich mother of his deceased father, who offered to "adopt him as her heir, if he would ignore his identity with the colored race". Although no trace of his African ancestry was visible in his appearance, he declined the offer.
203:, Iola's mother. A small child when brutally separated from her mother Harriet Johnson, she finally becomes the slave of wealthy Eugene Leroy. When Eugene becomes seriously ill, she nurses him back to health. He sets her free, has her educated and marries her in a secret ceremony. Although she is so white that "no one would suspect that she has one drop of negro blood in her veins", the marriage results in the Leroy family becoming social outcasts.
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255:, military physician. He falls in love with Iola while he still thinks that she is white. When informed that she is "colored", his love helps him to overcome his prejudice, and he proposes to Iola at two different points of the story. When rejected for the second time, "sympathy, love, and admiration were blended in the parting look he gave her".
343:: Prayer plays an important role in the life of the black characters: Iola and Robert discover the first clue of their kinship when Iola sings a special hymn at the bedside of the wounded Robert, which he has learned from his mother (chapter 16). Both find Harriet, their lost grandmother and mother, during a prayer meeting (chapter 20).
362:, a black professor from North Carolina, sees Islamic countries as "civilized" and compares them favorably to the southern United States, referring to lynchings and stating, "I know of no civilized country on the globe, Catholic, Protestant, or Mohammedan, where life is less secure than it is in the South".
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uncle Robert and Dr. Gresham, Iola states that a "fuller comprehension of the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and their application to our national life" is the only "remedy by which our nation can recover from the evil entailed upon her by slavery", to which both Robert and
Gresham agree (chapter 25).
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When Iola's brother Harry learns that his mother and sister have been reduced to slavery, he asks how such a thing is possible in a "Christian country". The principal of his school gives the answer: "Christian in name" (chapter 14). After the war and the abolition of slavery, in a discussion with her
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America" and as a fictional work dealing with complex issues of race, class, and politics in the United States. Recent scholarship suggests that Harper's novel provides a sophisticated understanding of citizenship, gender, and community, particularly the way that
African Americans developed hybrid
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The narrative then returns to the events following Iola's rescue by the Union army: Robert
Johnson and Tom Anderson join the army "to strike a blow for freedom", while Iola becomes a nurse in a military hospital. When Robert is entrusted to her care after being wounded, they tell each other their
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In a retrospective, the narrative turns to the story of that woman, Iola Leroy. Her father, Eugene Leroy, was a wealthy slaveholder, who had survived a serious illness through the care of a young slave, Marie. He set Marie free, married her and had three children, whose
African ancestry was not
337:" (chapters 18, 19). After Robert Johnson has found his long-lost mother, Aunt Linda pours three glasses of her home-made wine so they can celebrate the event. Robert refuses the wine stating, "I'm a temperance man", causing the conversion of Aunt Linda to the temperance idea.
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238:, enslaved cook of Nancy Johnson who has a special liking for Robert. She is illiterate and speaks in black dialect, yet she is among the black female characters of the novel who are intelligent, loyal to each other and of central importance to their community.
193:. He is still a child when separated from his mother Harriet. His enslaver, Nancy Johnson, sees him as a "pet animal" and teaches him to read. As a young man, he becomes the leader of a group of slaves who decide to seek refuge with the Union army during the
232:, friend of Robert Johnson. He seeks refuge with the Union army together with Johnson, causes the commander to set Iola free, joins the army and dies in Iola's care from wounds he received while knowingly sacrificing himself in order to save his comrades.
197:. He enlists in a colored regiment and is promoted to lieutenant. On account of his white skin, his superiors council him to change to a white regiment for better chances of promotion, but he refuses. After the war, he successfully runs a hardware store.
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stories which suggest that Robert might be the brother of Iola's mother--her uncle. After the war, they return to "C—" to search for Robert's mother, whom they recognize when she tells her story during a prayer meeting.
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After Iola and her uncle Robert have moved to the North, Iola tells her uncle that she wants to apply for a job as saleswoman. Robert earns enough so that she doesn't have "to go out to work", but she tells him,
333:: The damaging effects of alcohol are often discussed in the book. For example, after the war the black characters tell each other of two former masters who took to drink and ended up in the "
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woman. While following what has been termed the "sentimental" conventions of late nineteenth-century writing about women, it also deals with serious social issues of education for women,
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by
Herself. Enlarged Edition. Edited and with an Introduction by Jean Fagan Yellin. Now with "A True Tale of Slavery" by John S. Jacobs
399:: In chapter 17, Iola is teaching black children, when a "gentleman" asks to address the class. He talks about the "achievements of the white race" and then asks "how they did it."
392:"I have a theory that every woman ought to know how to earn her own living. I believe that a great amount of sin and misery springs from the weakness and inefficiency of women."
244:, elder friend of Robert Johnson. When Robert and his group seek refuge with the Union army, he stays behind because he doesn't want to break his promise to his absent master.
300:. Robert's friend Tom Anderson then informs the Union commander of a beautiful young woman held as a slave in the neighborhood, who is subsequently set free by the commander.
376:", but they are neither "patterned after the white model" nor are they silent or submissive. On the contrary, "Harper shows the necessity for women's voice". In a
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town which is only identified as "C—", a group of slaves led by Robert
Johnson seek refuge with the Union army that is approaching in the course of the
452:, but "initial readers responded positively", causing the novel to be reprinted until 1895. From then on, however, it was not re-published until 1971.
416:: In chapter 30, Lucille Delany says, "Instead of forgetting the past, I would have hold in everlasting remembrance our great deliverance." Historian
221:, a black woman with apparently no European ancestry, the founder of a school for "future wives and mothers", and the woman who Harry finally marries.
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Foreman, P. Gabrielle (Pier
Gabrielle). "'Reading Aright': White Slavery, Black Referents, and The Strategy of Histotextuality in Iola Leroy."
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quotes this as an example for Harper's work "to forge a positive view of black history", an aim she shared with fellow black writer
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among educated blacks, Iola and
Lucille, the only female participants "dominate the discussions. ... Their outspoken, sometimes
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Elkins, Marilyn (1990). "Reading Beyond the
Conventions: A Look at Frances E. W. Harper's 'Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted.'".
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Christmann, James (2000). "Raising Voices, Lifting Shadows: Competing Voice-Paradigms in Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy".
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187:, Iola Leroy's grandmother. While a slave of Nancy Johnson, she resists a whipping. As a punishment, she is sold.
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368:: The female characters who exert strong influence on the men in their roles as "moral forces owe something to
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606:"Oh, sho, chile," said Linda, "I can't read de newspapers, but ole Missus' face is newspaper nuff for me",
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by Frances E. W. Harper, The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, Oxford UP, 1990.
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Birnbaum, Michele (1999). "Racial Hysteria: Female Pathology and Race Politics in Frances Harper's
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Williams, Andreá N. "The Language of Class: Taxonomy and Respectability in Frances E. W. Harper's
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took up the pen name "Iola" when she first started writing articles about racism in the South.
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was for some time cited as the first novel written by an African-American woman. Professor
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Ernest, John. "Unsolved Mysteries and Emerging Histories: Frances E. Harper's Iola Leroy",
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The family is reunited when they locate Harry who had been fighting in the Union army in a
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Much space is given to discussions in which the characters talk about themes such as
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1054:, vol. 10, no. 2, 1997, p. 327-354. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/yale.1997.0020.
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Young, Elizabeth (1992). "Warring Fictions: Iola Leroy and the Color of Gender".
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by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Introduction by Hollis Robbins, Penguin, 2010.
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Cutter, Martha J. "The Politics of Hybridity in Frances Harper's Iola Leroy",
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Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth-century African-American Literature,
358:, speaks of the "imperfect creed" of "Mohammedanism". In another discussion,
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with introduction by Frances Smith Foster, The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1993.
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Unruly Tongue: Identity and Voice in American Women's Writing 1850 – 1930,
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by Frances E. W. Harper, Black Women Writers Series, Beacon Press, 1999.
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In the course of their discussions, the characters also mention
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A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader,
519:, a Mississippi court case that may have inspired the novel
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The novel was "awarded more blame than praise" by literary
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Dividing Lines: Class Anxiety and Postbellum Black Fiction
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University Press of Mississippi/Jackson, 1995, 180–207.
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and other foremothers of black women writing today."
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269:. In a discussion, he voices the view of southern
1113:by Frances E. W. Harper, Broadview Press, 2018.
403:″They've got the money,″ chorused the children.
1019:University Press of Mississippi, 1999, 141–160.
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285:Frances Harper on the book's
165:, and social responsibility.
1291:Novels set in North Carolina
1071:Gates, Henry Louis, editor,
957:. Harvard University Press.
16:1892 novel by Frances Harper
1259:public domain audiobook at
1109:Mitchell, Koritha, editor,
1087:Jacobs, Harriet A. (2000).
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1286:Novels set in Mississippi
951:Blight, David W. (2001).
397:Alleged white superiority
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888:Penguin Classics, 2010.
884:(ed.), "Introduction,"
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131:or Shadows Uplifted
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1089:Yellin, Jean Fagan
920:An Imperative Duty
516:Hinds v. Brazealle
503:Zora Neale Hurston
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271:white supremacists
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213:Dr. Frank Latimer
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277:Plot summary
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242:Uncle Daniel
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230:Tom Anderson
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59:Social novel
995:(1): 5–18.
930:(1): 7–23.
259:Dr. Latrobe
253:Dr. Gresham
207:Harry Leroy
201:Marie Leroy
65:Set in
1270:Categories
1256:Iola Leroy
1240:Iola Leroy
1227:Iola Leroy
1213:Iola Leroy
1206:Iola Leroy
1154:Iola Leroy
1073:Iola Leroy
916:Iola Leroy
798:Iola Leroy
781:Iola Leroy
749:Iola Leroy
693:Iola Leroy
676:Iola Leroy
659:Iola Leroy
642:Iola Leroy
610:Iola Leroy
591:Iola Leroy
573:Iola Leroy
556:Iola Leroy
539:Iola Leroy
524:References
499:Iola Leroy
456:Iola Leroy
433:Iola Leroy
335:pore-house
331:Temperance
325:temperance
265:, and 28,
236:Aunt Linda
179:Iola Leroy
169:Characters
163:temperance
133:, an 1892
126:Iola Leroy
117:Wikisource
31:Title page
1136:cite book
1130:. Boston.
833:Incidents
477:forms of
474:Civil War
298:Civil War
195:Civil War
155:abolition
73:Publisher
1261:LibriVox
1037:27746393
867:Elkins,
849:Elkins,
813:Blight,
796:Harper,
779:Harper,
764:Elkins,
747:Harper,
729:Elkins,
711:Elkins,
691:Harper,
674:Harper,
657:Harper,
640:Harper,
625:Elkins,
608:Harper,
589:Harper,
571:Harper,
554:Harper,
537:Harper,
509:See also
382:feminist
372:and the
341:Religion
47:Language
1186:2927836
1091:(ed.).
1009:2901181
944:2901298
802:250–251
785:146–147
469:Our Nig
450:critics
147:passing
102:iv, 282
50:English
1184:
1156:." In
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1079:
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319:Themes
37:Author
1182:JSTOR
1033:JSTOR
1005:JSTOR
940:JSTOR
370:Stowe
352:Islam
292:In a
135:novel
99:Pages
55:Genre
1152:and
1142:link
1115:ISBN
1097:ISBN
1077:ISBN
977:ISBN
959:ISBN
836:xxxi
815:Race
107:Text
86:1892
1230:at
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1174:doi
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922:".
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