Major Symbols |
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Major Symbols |
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The man on a horse is a common motif used throughout The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. This image first comes into play when the southern and northern soldiers are riding onto the Brown Plantation. We see this image again with Colonel Dye and then with Joe Pittman. When we are introduced to Tee-Bob and Timmy, they are also seen on horseback. One critic describes the horse as “an emblem of the old South and recalls the chivalric tradition that is part of southern mythology. Traditionally, the ability to ride a horse embodies southern manhood (Zafian).”
The black stallion comes into the novel while Jane and Joe Pittman are living at the ranch. The black stallion is the one horse that Joe couldn’t tame. In describing the black stallion, Amanda Zafian writes, “Ernest Gaines says that he modeled the stallion after Moby Dick. He wanted to make it a creature that drives man to destruction in his desire to control it (Zafian).” One could look deeper than that, however, and say that the black stallion, being a part of the southern tradition, is a metaphor for Joe’s struggle to prove himself a man. He may feel that being able to prove that he is a man in the south; he could prove that he is a man anywhere. Also, since Jane is barren and cannot produce any children, Joe has no physical proof of his masculinity. This drives him to break and ride wild horses. The black stallion is his ultimate challenge and his last feat in the rites of passage that he makes up in his mind to finally prove himself a real man.
After journeying off of the plantation in search of Ohio, Jane’s party is ambushed by a group of patrollers. Everyone is killed except for Jane and Ned, including Ned’s mother, Big Laura. The night before the massacre, Big Laura used a flint and iron that she kept with her to make a campfire. Interestingly enough, Jane gives Ned the flint as something to remember his mother by. Jane may have picked these objects out of the wreckage as nothing more than a tool they would use later when they rested. Somewhere on their journey, this tool transformed into something much greater than simple flint and iron. When Jane and Ned finally met someone that was willing to ferry them across the river, the man asked Ned, “I say, little man, what them rocks for (Gaines p 34)?” Ned simply stated, “Fiyer (p34).” Of course, the flint symbolizes much more than conventional fire.
The flint is the only thing Ned had left to remind him of his mother. It is also something that acted as a constant reminder of the way his mother was killed trying to find freedom. It is this reminder that acted as a catalyst for his actions upon becoming a man. Rather than using the flint to light a campfire for keeping himself warm and cooking food, Ned used the flint to light a fire in people’s hearts.
The river is introduced in the third book of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. We are told that the white man has tried many times to control the flow of the river with little or no success until the men finally put up a concrete spillway in 1927. Upon first look at the river as a symbol, it would seem to represent man’s failure to control nature. However, we could also view the river as a metaphor that symbolizes the lives of people. On pages 155 and 158 of the novel, Jane tells of the problems men have had trying to control the river:
I don’t know when the first levee was built – probably in slavery time… the water destroyed the levee soon as it was put there. Now, if the white men had taken heed to what the river was trying to say… it would have saved a lot of pain later… but instead he built another levee… Now he built his concrete spillways to control the water. But one day the water will break his spillways just like it broke through the levee… That same water… will run free again. You just wait and see.
The water in the river that she refers to is the lives of the black Americans. By putting certain laws and guidelines in place, the white men could control black Americans as long as they wanted to. The first levee was, in fact, made during the time of slavery. The first levee represents slavery and the emancipation proclamation is what destroyed it. We see Jane issuing a warning that it doesn’t matter how big or strong the white men make the levee or spillway, it will eventually be destroyed. Likewise, no matter how much they try to control another race, that race will eventually become free. As Jane mentions, if the white men would just treat the black race as humans instead of property or animals now, it won’t be quite as painful for them once the black race finally gets enough strength to revolt.