Plain Clever: Seacole's Syntax To the (Reader's) Rescue.

Reading: The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857)

(This is a real gem of a memoir, for those unfamiliar.)

Syntactic Manipulation, Textual Domination.

Upon rereading The Wonderful Adventures..., I recalled a class discussion about Seacole’s moments of coyness/discretion that were conspicuously performative. I’m thinking, most specifically, about a conversation regarding her overly-playful holding-back of information (her age, e.g.), but I speak also to mentions of other descriptions of her attention to decorum. In many cases, her syntax becomes directly invested in this coyness, to the extent that her language feels rhetorically disordered, even muddled, or openly flat. In such instances, her words seem contrived with the specific intention to emphasize her devotion to decorum (which includes genuine humility) and her true capability and skill in her occupation. That is, Seacole capitalizes on her command of language by constructing clever pockets of logic that force her reader to at once acknowledge her capability and her humility while she maintains a mask of ignorance or simple-mindedness that covers her tracks. One noteworthy phenomenon is Seacole’s (over)use of parenthetical material to temper her statements with affirmations of personal pride. Even though she packages such claims for self-legitimacy as barely-significant afterthoughts, she often constrains her language to avoid appearing any way other than humble.

Several Examples:

And here I must pause to set myself right with my kind reader. He or she will not, I hope, think that, in narrating these incidents, I am exalting my poor part unduly. I do not deny (it is indeed the only thing that I have to be proud of) that I am pleased and gratified when I look upon my past life, and see times now and then, and places here and there, when and where I have been enabled to benefit my fellow-creatures suffering from the ills my skill could often remedy. (25-26)

This passage continues as Seacole attributes her personal “strength” to “Providence,” but she moves next to degrade “strength” to mere “usefulness” (26).

Also:

Need I be ashamed to confess that I shared in the general enthusiasm, and longed more than ever to carry my busy (and the reader will not hesitate to add experienced) fingers where the sword or bullet had been busiest, and the pestilence most rife. (75)

In this case, Seacole employs the familiar technique of shying from rhetorical accountability by assigning the reader’s discerning authority. Such a tactic really confounds the prose, however, as it once again disrupts sentential flow and thwarts grammatical continuity. The sentence must likely be reread to follow the initial logical trajectory to fruition, or at least to register the weight of the supposedly-central idea.

And most tellingly:

Of course, had it not been for my old strong-mindedness (which has nothing to do with obstinacy, and is in no way related to it–the best term I can think of to express it being “judicious decisiveness”), I should have given up the scheme a score of times in as many days; so regularly did each successive day give birth to a fresh set of rebuffs and disappointments. I shall make no excuse to my readers for giving them a pretty full history of my struggles to become a Crimean heroine!

My first idea (and knowing that I was well fitted for the work, and would be the right woman in the right place, the reader can fancy my audacity) was to apply to the War Office for the post of hospital nurse. (76)

The first aside allows Seacole to insert her preemptive rebuttal to possible accusations of obstinacy (a term of course used to undermine female resolve) while defusing it by enclosing it parenthetically. The effect, however, cannot be ignored – judicious decisiveness resounds to overshadow the polite prose that follows. The conclusion, of course, emphasizes her role as heroine as appropriate, intentional, and earned. The next set of parentheses enclose another aside of personal affirmation that, in its choppy list of proof-reasoning, distracts the reader from the main thrust of the sentence (her “idea… to apply”), and forces one to instead consider her aptness on her terms.

In his introductory preface to this work, Times correspondent W.H. Russell commends Seacole’s story as one of the “trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless woman”. He specifically notes her linguistic simplicity – she is not “verbose”, but “a plain truth-speaking woman” – in an introduction that lauds her vulnerability and her simple-mindedness. Such prefatory remarks to this work must indicate either Russell’s analytical naivety or his eagerness to sell Seacole’s story to those who might find her capability discomforting.