THE GENRE OF THE SLAVE NARRATIVE CONTINUED

these narratives were truly “authentic.” They encouraged – or forced – authors to adhere to certain stylistic and narrative conventions, such as a focus on hard facts rather than subjective feelings, or a posture of gratitude toward white abolitionists. In fact, many authors began their narratives with expressions of modesty similar to Omar’s, as if to communicate indebtedness to their editors and publishers. Due to these circumstances, it is essential that contemporary readers approach these texts not simply as “objective” historical sources, but rather as layered documents which conceal as much as they reveal about their narrators’ lives.

Omar’s Life, for example, says nothing about what he endured during the Middle Passage, and goes into little detail about what he experienced at the hands of his first master, a “small, weak and wicked man, called Johnson.” It is full of praise for his enslaver, John Owen – a “good man” who “never beats me nor scolds me.” There are flashes of emotion – asked if he would return to Charleston, Omar answers, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no” – but the text’s overall tone is measured, even reserved. Because Omar wrote in a language that his enslavers could not read, perhaps he had more agency than other enslaved people to write what he wished, and chose to focus on his faith, which was extremely meaningful to him. At the same time, if he intended to impress potential antislavery audiences, he may have been compelled to emphasize his own literacy and piousness more than his suffering.

Given the limits of this text, the details of Omar’s experience will remain unknown – which may partially explain its appeal as a source text for a creative work. In his own slave narrative, Frederick Douglass mused on the power of enslaved people’s singing to communicate what words could not: “I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.” Although a twenty-first-century opera sounds very different from the spirituals Douglass describes, their influence is embedded in the musical lineage that has led to the composition of this opera. Ultimately, opera gives us a different way of accessing Omar’s narrative, considering its power and its limitations, and remaining attuned to the vitality of his story.

REFLECT:

What meanings do you think the intended audience for the original 1831 Arabic-language version of Omar’s narrative took away from reading it?

Take a look at the digitized version of Omar’s narrative.

What do you observe?

What surprises you or catches your attention?

DISCUSS:

How is reading a scholarly source about a subject – especially a traumatic subject like slavery – different from engaging with creative work about that subject?

What new understandings do contemporary scholars add when reading this text today in Arabic and English? intended Arabic-language from

What different meanings might the 1925 audience reading the English translation have learned?