Remaking black motherhood in Frank J. Webb's The Gaffes and their Friends

African American Review, Summer, 2004 by Anna Mae Duane

In response to critics who have chastised The Garies for its supposed distance from slavery, I suggest that the novel's depiction of the Ellis sisters' resistance represents a far more accurate connection to the experiences of black female slaves than the pale, half-fainting victims popular in contemporary antislavery texts. As scholars like Deborah Gray White and Angela Y. Davis have shown, the lives of enslaved women were not marked by abject victimhood, but by self-reliance, resistance, and relative equality in marriage. Esther's desire to strangle abusive men may have shocked white arbiters of femininity, but would have struck a responsive chord with Fannie Berry, a former slave who, in 1937, recounted the story of a fellow slave woman named Sukie to an interviewer. Sukie, like Caddy, defends herself from a white man's advances by making use of domestic tools, in her case, boiling vats of lye:

   ... ole Marsa was always tryin' to
   make Sukie his gal.... He lay into her,
   but she ain't answer him a word. Den
   he tell Sukie to take off her dress. She
   tole him no. Den he grabbed her an
   pull it down off'n her shoulders. When
   he done dat, he fo'got about whuppin
   her I guess, 'cause he grab hold of her
   an' try to pull her down own de flo'.
   Den dat black gal got mad. She took
   an' punch ole Marsa an" made him
   break loose an den she gave him a
   shove an push his hindparts down in
   de hot pot o' soap. Soap was near to
   bilin', an it burnt him near to death. He
   got up holdin' his hindparts an' ran
   from de kitchen, not darin' to yell,
   'cause he didn't want Miss Sarah Ann
   to know bout it.... Marsa never did
   bother slave gals no mo'. (57)

AS Deborah Gray White explains, in response to their "exposure to the ugly, the crude, the base nature of southern society," slave women invented a new definition of womanhood "neither grounded in female frailty and meekness, nor founded upon women's inferiority to men" (101). I suggest, then, that Webb's depiction of the "unchristian" and "unwomanly" behavior of the Ellis sisters recovers black womanhood from the persistent literary trope of victimization and instead celebrates the strength that allowed generations of black women to survive the trials of slavery.

An alternative conception of family emerges from the destruction of the riot, one where both black men and women exert physical and moral authority. With Mr. and Mrs. Garie dead, and Mr. Ellis permanently maimed at the hands of white rioters, the two families are now reformed under a partnership between Esther Ellis and Mr. Waiters. From the beginning, the relationship is marked by a candid acknowledgment of Esther's strength. Overwhelmed by the riot's many tragedies, Mr. Waiters turns to her to help bear the burden. After telling Esther of the brutal beating her father sustained, he asks her to break the bad news to her mother and sister. "'Esther,'" he confesses, "'I'm not equal to it'" (237). In this new conception of family, old gender roles no longer apply with the same rigidity: Strong men can admit weakness and women can take charge. Paternalistic husbands are replaced by a man who admires female power, and the timidity of Mrs. Garie and Mrs. Ellis is surpassed by a woman whose capable body allows her to defend her family both physically and morally.