“So long and toilsome a Journey:” Sarah Kemble Knight’s Nonhuman and Human Encounters
[Rough Draft]
This paper will function as an exploration of Sarah Kemble Knight’s The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York through an ecofeminist lens by examining the representation of human and nonhuman in the text. Specifically, I will investigate the relationships forged by Knight between human and nonhuman entities through her use of language, which has the power to render the entity as subject or object. Vivid descriptions of urban and rural landscapes are provided by Knight, as well as numerous interactions with people she encounters during her five day journey between Boston and New Haven. I am interested in whether or not the binary of human and nonhuman remains static, or changes with each encounter during the journey. A sense of fluidity could indicate Knight’s willingness to view her relationship with the landscape as subject-to-subject, rather than subject-to-object.
Ecofeminism explores the connection between the degradation of nature and the domination of women, and the consequences of patriarchy artificially linking the two entities. By examining the manner in which Knight represents human (particularly other women, Native Americans, and African American slaves) and the nonhuman environment, I hope to locate moments of resistance to patriarchal ideology by Knight. However, I suspect I will find Knight more often than not upholding, and even participating in, the degradation of both nature and the domination of people of color based on their economic, class, and racial status. If certain humans are described as objects rather than subjects, can a connection be found to landscape as subject too?
Literature Review
There is a small body of criticism dedicated to Knight’s journal, and I chose four articles to focus on for the purpose of this exploration. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola examines Knight’s relationship with the landscape through the filter of the picaresque genre. The frontier landscape, according to Derounian-Stodola, becomes “literary, colonized, domesticated, ‘urbanized,’ dangerous, comic, practical, and amoral” (123). Knight’s descriptions of the landscape challenge the Puritan view of the landscape, rendering Knight’s voice unorthodox. Additionally, Knight’s landscape is not transformed by the garden metaphor found by Annette Kolodony in other women’s writings; in contrast, Knight often “urbanizes” her landscape, referring frequently to towns rather than the frontier.
Robert O. Stephens claims that Knight describes the landscape in two manners: the world or the actual, and the underworld or the mythic. Stephens argues that scholars should focus on the mythic elements found within the journal rather than take the journal as a “literal diary.” The essay resituates Knight’s work within the “fruitful tradition of colonial American, and particularly New England, literature” (254). Alan Margolies provides readers with a succinct publication history of the journal, which provided basic contextual information. While my project does not hinge on the author’s identity, it is interesting to note that many critics of the 1825 original publication believed Madam Knight to be a fictional creation. Critics also believed the story to be fictional, which again, does not change the nature of this exploration.
Peter Kratzke states that whether Knight uses mimetic or mythic language and imagery, both are polemical in nature. Knight provides her readers with extremes of a given category. The body and spirit, and human and animal imagery is addressed briefly, and Kratzke notes that the “polemical landscape is blurred by very real physical danger,” which is of interest to this project (48). If the landscape is the only imagery that escapes clear cut polemical categories, how does this affect the relationship of human to nonhuman in the journal?
Rochelle Johnson and Daniel Patterson’s article gave me historical and literary context. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries viewed nature with an “unrestrained imperialistic ethic of domination,” which matches the findings of Kolodny in terms of male writers. Johnson and Patterson locate a shift in the late eighteenth century in which the manner of living for settlers in North America had changed, but not the ethic. Knight’s journal was originally written in 1704-1705 and so falls in between this shift of changing lifestyles. The lack of copious descriptions of landscape in Knight’s journal is in normal during the late seventeenth century to the time of the American Revolution. Johnson and Patterson claim that most writings were “largely silent about nature, focusing mainly on narratives of people (both Native and Euro-American), politics, and religious work” (5-6).
Paul Lindholdt’s essay dealt with natural histories, which Knight’s journal is not, but I found an interesting claim that could correspond with Knight’s storytelling. Lindholdt claims that the American “tall tale” actually originated in the seventeenth century, not the nineteenth, because writers would include “extravagant fables and creatures” in works about the New World. While I do not claim that Knight included extravagant creatures in her journal, she does appropriate mythic language throughout her work to describe human and nonhuman elements she encounters.
Scholars are applying ecocritical and ecofeminist theories to early American texts in addition to the traditionally defined origin of nature writing, Henry David Thoreau. Timothy Sweet addresses three possibilities of analysis: the contrastive model, an early American origins model, and an environmentally inflected origins model. Although Sweet’s analysis focuses on eco-economic theories, he does address the motivations of ecofeminist American studies. Ecofeminist studies wish to “investigat[e] the shape of the nature-culture boundary” as well as “the desire to transform wilderness into domestic space, from the colonial era on” or locating “undomesticated space in nature” starting in the 1820s (420). Daniel Philippon, in response to Sweet’s article, also defends the necessity and value of ecocritical theory: “To not address the nonhuman world in literary and cultural criticism is now becoming as unthinkable as failing to attend to race, class, and gender, among other social categories, and that is an unqualified good on both philosophical and biological grounds” (432). The project of reexamining early American texts through an ecocritical or ecofeminist lens can provide insight into later periods of American literary history, according to Philippon.
Examination of the nonhuman and landscape
Knight’s initial journey from Boston to New Haven takes five days, covers two hundred miles, and follows the Post Road. The land is neither completely wild nor fully civilized; Knight’s longest journey between markers of civilization is only thirty miles. However, the dangers faced by Knight are based on navigation of the blurred boundaries as she struggles to cross rivers, travel by horse at night, and traverse hills and mountainous terrain with guides more knowledgeable about the wilderness than herself. Despite the fact that most of her journal focuses on the people she meets, Knight does include descriptions of her interaction with the landscape. Most of these descriptions illustrate her unpleasant experiences with the nonhuman world, or feature her triumph over the landscape.
Even though the route Knight follows is called Post Road, the road is not uniform in appearance. Knight’s first guide reminds her it is dangerous to ride “hard” in the night; however, the horse “has the sense to avoid” riding hard (90). The first night of her journey consists of riding through a “thick swamp” in a “great fogg.” Knight describes herself as “startled” by the darkness, the fog, and the swamp itself, and she must rely on the knowledge of her guide to see her safely through the danger. The roads range from “even and pleasant” and “clean, good and passable” to “very bad.” Generally, the more populated the location of the post stop, the better the roads. The condition of the roads are mentioned in the journal only when they present an obstacle for Knight, or when she is praising a more civilized town for having good roads.
Knight does not spend her journey walking the roads nor does she travel in a coach. Instead, Knight must ride a horse, which she never refers to by a specific name. Horses are referred to as horse, hors, jade, mare, and nagg, and the most important role a horse plays in the journal is its relationship to its rider. In one section, a young lady must ride bareback at a past pace over a rough road, causing her to bemoan her sore backside, providing Knight with an amusing story to retell. More seriously, Knight’s horse spooks while crossing the New London Ferry, the horse almost stumbles off a steep and narrow pathway while she’s riding, and her horse collapses underneath her while she’s riding up a hill. Knight refuses on several occasions to ride her horse across a river, demanding instead to be conveyed in a canoe, suggesting that Knight trusts a man-made object, the canoe, over nature’s creation, the horse.
Rivers are the most frequently mentioned obstacle and source of terror for Knight during her journey. The rivers are “bad,” “dang’ros,” “difficult,” “hazzardos,” or “navigable.” Although there are ferries available for some of the rivers, the crossing is still dangerous; one ferry takes four hours to cross a river that is filled with ice. The second river Knight encounters, she refuses to ride across on her horse, and instead the Post provides a “very small and shallow” canoe with a boy to paddle. Knight is convinced the canoe will flood and this thought “greatly terrifie[s]” her (92). This theme of terror continues with the third river, although Knight does include self-mockery of her fright:
I cannot express The concern of mind this relation sett me in: no thoughts but those of the dang’ros River could entertain my Imagination, and they were as formidable as various, still Tormenting me with blackest Ideas of my Approaching fate—Sometime seing myself drowning, otherwhiles drowned, and at the best like a holy Sister Just come out of a Spiritual Bath in dripping Garments. (92)
Even though Knight makes light of her terror, the dangers she faces during her journey, mainly the risk of drowning in a river, are still strongly conveyed throughout her journal. When faced with the challenge of crossing a “hazzardos River” at night on her horse, Knight obeys the advice of her guide and gives her horse its head, allowing it to navigate across the river without her interference. Knight describes her choice as either possibly drowning in the river, or being left behind on the river’s shore.
Knight at times refuses to cross rivers if there is a possibility of calmer weather or the waters falling to a more manageable level. For example, the Paukatang River challenges her “weary, very weary, hungry and uneasy circumstance” and she allows the party she is traveling with to cross on without her (99). The presence of a ferry is no guarantee of a safe crossing, as Knight discovers with the New London Ferry: it is with “great difficulty in getting over” due to high winds that toss the boat about, and horses that “capered” in reaction to the bad weather and crossing (100). A river swollen with ice melt is described as a “rapid stream” which “was very terrifying,” but Knight still crosses it in a canoe (116). Further description of this experience is cut short with the explanation that “it is past my skill to express the Exceeding fright all their transactions formed in me” (116). The travel through a landscape described as “dolesome woods,” “Terrifying darkness,” “Armed Enymie,”and trees and bushes that “gave us an unpleasant welcome” (93) leaves Knight worried, filled with “fears and fatigue,” and “tired and dispirited.”
In examining the language used by Knight to describe the landscape she traversed during her journey, it becomes clear that she views the landscape as an object, rather than a subject equal to humans. Even though the landscape, especially rivers, provides tangible dangers and obstacles to a traveler such as Knight, she does not allow the landscape to prevent her from reaching her final destinations: New Haven, and New York, and then back home to Boston. After suffering through a terrifying river crossing and struggling up a hill in the dark, Knight aligns her triumph with the now visible moon, which she terms the “Glorious Luminary” (92). The moon is transformed into the “kind conductress of the night,” and the rest of the landscape is similarly transformed: clownish trees become Boister’s Trees, Knight’s terror becomes “Bright Joy” in her soul, and rather than seeing “Armed Enymies” in the night, Knight now imagines a “Sumpteous citty” populated with buildings and churches (94). The rural landscape is imaginatively shifted into an urban and civilized town.
While the landscape is largely ignored in the journal in favor of Knight’s interactions with other people and rural cultures, Knight does include her approval of cities that have transformed and harnessed the natural landscape. The town of New Rochelle is described as
a very pretty place well compact, and good handsome houses, Clean, good and passable Rodes, and situated on a Navigable River, abundance of land well fined and Cleerd all along as wee passed, which caused in me a Love to the place, wch I could have been content to live in. (111)
Towns that have bad roads, hard to cross rivers or no ferries, and ugly houses are subject to Knight’s scorn and disapproval. The urban is clearly privileged over the rural and frontier in the journal. In addition to preferring urban landscapes, Knight’s human-human relationships indicate cultural and racial boundaries of her time. An examination of the manner in which Knight describes other women, Native Americans, and African American slaves is needed before a connection can be made between the degradation of nature and the domination of women and “others” in the journal.
Examination of human-human relationships
Women that Knight disapproves of are mentioned more frequently than women Knight approves of, or feels treated her with the proper respect. “A young Lady” at her first stop peppers with Knight with “silly questions.” This young lady, Knight records, is rude, implies that only a prostitute would appear late at night and alone, and unsuccessfully attempts to impress Knight by putting on two or three rings. Another woman is scorned for her poor attempt to cook pork and cabbage served in a purple sauce (turned purple by her kettle) with “Indian bred.” Mr. Devill’s daughters “look’t as old as the Divel himself, and quite as ugly” and live in a “habitation of cruelty” (98). The old woman at Knight’s next stop is a “pretty full mouth’d old creature” who violates proper manners by loudly telling the French doctor her maladies in front of company (98).
The wife of the man who provides a guide at Paukataug River, along with her husband and children, is reduced to an object of pity. Knight uses their poverty-stricken existence and appearance to remind herself that her “late fatigues” are only temporary. Jemima, an eighteen year old girl, is reduced to a punch line in a humorous story, and the Saybrook land lady is depicted as a foul creature who pollutes her food offerings with her continuous scratching and refusal to wash her hands. “Jone Tawdry” is presented as an ignorant bumpkin in search of ribbons, and “Little Miss” of the French family cannot make a proper bed. Knight also records her encounter with a “surly old shee Creature, not worthy the name of woman” who refuses Knight and her traveling party admittance during a storm (110). Knight reduces these women to the status of “other” by labeling them creatures, devils, and as exaggerated caricatures, demeaning them for not meeting societal and cultural standards that she believes in and enforces through recording these encounters.
Mentions of Native Americans and African American slaves are few, but they are present in the journal. Knight’s “tattertailed guide” is described as “an Indian-like Animal,” implying that Native Americans are animal-like rather than human, objects rather than subjects (99). The Native American in her theft story is called a “Heathen” and is not given a name. Rather than describe specific men and women, Knight refers to her observations of Native Americans as one entity, calling them “the most salvage of all the salvages of that kind that I had ever Seen” (105). She is scornful that no attempt has been made by whites to civilize these “salvages.” Through her brief descriptions, it is clear that Knight disapproves of Native American marriage, divorce, and mourning rituals and practices. She also does not enjoy their food, remarking that she cannot stand to eat the “Pumpkin and Indian mixt Bred” served to her one night (107).
Knight’s portrayal of African American slaves reveals the hierarchy of races: whites, then Native Americans, with slaves at the bottom. The “negro slave” in her theft story is never given a name, and the story is included in her journal as a means of mocking the bumpkins of the countryside. The people of New Have, according to Knight, are “too Indulgent (especially the farmers) to their slaves” (104) because they are too “familiar” with them, and allow slaves to sit and eat at their tables. Knight retells the story of a “poor master” who voluntarily agrees to arbitration with a slave and has to pay his slave forty dollars (105).
Knight reduces women, Native Americans, and African American slaves to others, revealing that she participates in acts of patriarchal domination over those who do not qualify as privileged subjects. Similarly, the landscape through which she travels is subject to Knight’s inclusion or exclusion in the journal based on her ability to “urbanize” the landscape or prove that she triumphed over her terrors and fears. While Knight does not use scornful or wrathful language to describe the landscape that she utilizes when describing people she disapproves of, it is clear that urban settings are privileged and preferred over rural landscapes because they are civilized, and contain civilized citizens. Knight does not experience terror, weariness or fatigue while in the cities of New Haven or New York; she only experiences amusement, business opportunities, and encounters with bumpkins or those she considers her equal.
Conclusion
This exploration of Knight’s journal through an ecofeminist lens has revealed that the connection between the degradation of nature, whether physical or literary, and the domination of women or “others” can be located in early American literary history. The gender of Knight does not make a difference in her experience with urban and rural landscapes because she still participates in acts of domination over those deemed objects rather than subjects. While the motivations of Knight should not be assigned by critics, her language used to identity objects and subjects can be analyzed, revealing compliance with cultural and social hierarchies. A comparison of Knight’s journal with the brief account “Memoir of a Journey from New London to Boston” by John Winthrop (the governor’s son) would prove interesting because the parties took the same route within three months of each other (Bush 69). Locating other travel narratives by both women and men during the early 1700s would expand the boundaries of this brief investigation, allowing for a stronger claim that the ecofeminist lens provides valuable insight into the society and cultural hierarchies of this time period.
Works Cited:
Bush, Jr. Sargent. “Introduction: The Journal of Madam Knight.” Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives. Ed. William L. Andrews. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1990. 67-83. Print.
Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle. “The New England Frontier and the Picaresque in Sarah Kemble Knight's Journal.” Early American Literature and Culture: Essays Honoring Harrison T. Meserole. Eds. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola and J.A. Leo Lemay. 122-31. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992. Print.
Johnson, Rochelle, and Daniel Patterson. “Writing about Nature in Early America: From Discovery to 1850.” Literature of Nature: An International Sourcebook. Ed. Patrick D. Murphy. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998. 3-12. Print.
Knight, Sarah Kemble. “The Journal of Madam Knight.” Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives. Ed. William L. Andrews. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1990. 85-116. Print.
Kratzke, Peter. “Sarah Kemble Knight's Polemical Landscape.” CEA Critic: An Official Journal of the College English Association. 65.3 (2003): 4-9. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2011.
Lindholdt, Paul. “Early American Natural Histories.” Literature of Nature: An International Sourcebook. Ed. Patrick D. Murphy. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998. 13-17. Print.
Margolies, Alan. “The Editing and Publication of The Journal of Madam Knight.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 58 (1964): 25-32. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 July 2011.
Philippon, Daniel J. “Is Early American Environmental Writing Sustainable? A Response to Timothy Sweet.” Early American Literature. 45.2 (2010): 417-23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 June 2011.
Sweet, Timothy. “Projecting Early American Environmental Writing.” Early American Literature. 45.2 (2010): 403-16. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 June 2011.
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