The Journal of Madam Knight:
An Early American Travel Narrative (1704)
Image Taken from: http://b-womeninamericanhistory18.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
Assignment: Prior to class, read the following
information regarding Sarah Kemble Knight’s life: http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit03/authors-3.html
Questions to Ponder
1. How
does Knight’s journal differ from Mary Rowlandson’s?
2. Why
do you think Knight looks down on both rural and Native American people along
the way?
Background Information:
Terms
·
Travel
Narrative: an account of a traveler’s adventures, unfamiliar customs, and
concepts challenging to the traveler’s homeland.
·
Madam: the
early eighteenth-century manner of address for a middle-aged matron (Bush 69)
·
Taverns: before
hotels, travelers would stop at a tavern, which served as a “communication hub
[that] facilitated social interaction” and the “mixing of classes” (Imbarrato
56). There were more taverns in
colonial America than any other public buildings, including churches (Annenberg
Foundation).
Fisher’s
Tavern
Knight stopped here her first night on the road:
The above image of Fisher’s
Tavern, courtesy of the Dedham Historical Society, is taken from: http://www.learner.org/amerpass/slideshow/archive_search.php?number=7057&fullsize=1
Audience
·
Unlike journals and diaries today, journals in
Knight’s time were meant to be shared, read, and circulated among friends and
family.
Geography
·
Knight left her home in Boston on October 2,
1704, to begin a journey on the rustic road to New Haven in order to be present
at the settlement of her relative’s estate:
Image
Taken From: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text1/connecticutknight.pdf
Class and Hierarchy in The Journal of Madam Knight
1. What
names does Knight come up with for different groups of people (rural people,
Native Americans, etc.)?
2. How
does Madam Knight classify or judge the people she encounters (food, geography,
clothes, habits, etc.)? Point to
specific examples.
3.
Scott Michaelson argues that The Journal of Madam Knight should be presented as one of America’s
seminal texts for thinking through issues of “self” and “other.” Do you agree? Does this text encourage us to adopt or critique Knight’s
attitude? Explain.
Portrayal of Language and
the Tongue in Knight’s Journal
As Knight crosses the river in a canoe, she focuses on her
tongue:
The Cannoo was very small and
shallow, so that when we were in she seem’d redy to take in water, which
greatly terrified mee, and caused me to be very circumspect, sitting with my
hands fast on each side, my eyes stedy, not daring so much as to lodg my tongue
a hair’s breadth more on one side of my mouth then tother, nor so much as thing
on Lott’s wife…[1] (92)
Julia Stern comments on this scene:
The tongue, of all the appendages upon which one could
fixate in a moment of physical terror, seems a rather absurd choice…Yet Knight
imagines her tongue to be the seat of a force so great that upon its stillness
her very survival depends.
1. Was Knight’s focus on her
tongue meant to be comical? How
does her story either convey or conflict with her beliefs regarding female
speech?
2. Consider
the following words from Cotton Mather’s popular sermon, Ornaments of the Daughters of Zion (1692), with which Knight would
have been familiar:
The Attainment which therefore I
Recommend unto you, is that in Prov. 10.20. The Tongue of the Just, is as choice silver. A Woman is often valued according to
the Silver that she has to bring unto them that will call her their Mistres, in
order to their being Master of that. ‘Tis a few Pounds, Shillings, and Pexee,
that makes her weigh heaviest on the scale of the vulgar Estimation. For a woman of a Silver Tongue is the
person of whom we may most Reasonably Say, she is not of Little worth. As your speech ought always be True,
and there should be no less an Agreement between your Heart and Words, then
between your words and (illegible, possibly Thoughts], ever speaking As you
think, tho’ it may be not All you think; lest you put Brass or Tin instead of
Silver: so your speech ought likewise to be Rare, like Silver, which is not so
common as Copper or Iron is. Be careful
that you don’t speak too soon, because you cannot fetch back and eat up, what
is uttered; but Study to Answer.
And be careful that you don’t speak too much, because when the Chest is
always open, everyone counts there are no Treasures in it; and the Scripture
tells us, ‘tis the Whore, that is Clamorous, and the Fool, that is Full of
words. Let there be comely
Affability and Ingenuity at the same time, in all your Speech, that it may be
as Grateful as a Bag of Silver would be to the Receivers of it; and O let there
be no Dross in your whole Communication. (50-51)
3. How
does Knight explore this issue (censoring speech, polite language) in her
journal? Does she follow the
advice herself?
Madam Knight: An Unruly
Woman?
Female Traveler
4. When
Knight arrives at Billings’s Inn, the hostess greets her by saying, “I never
see a woman on the Rode so Dreadfull late, in all the days of my versall life…”
(91).
1. Why
is the woman surprised to see Knight out so late?
2. Does
Knight display any signs of anxiety regarding Knight travel?
Conduct Manuals
Assignment:
·
To gain a context for the following passages,
follow this link to access the 1688 popular conduct manual by Lord Halifax
called Lady’s New-years Gift: or, Advice
to a Daughter:
·
Next find passages in Madam Knight’s journal
that demonstrate that Madam Knight transgresses expectations based on your
assigned excerpt from the conduct manual.
GROUP 1
GROUP 1
·
HUSBAND:
“You must first lay it down for a Foundation in general, That there is
Inequality in the Sexes, and that for the better Oeconomy of the Word, the Men,
who were to be the Law-givers, had the larger share of Reason bestow’d upon
them; by which means your Sex is the better prepar’d for the Complance that is
necessary for the better performance of those Duties which seem’d to be most
properly assign’d to it…” (26)
GROUP 2
·
BEHAVIOR:
“Therefore nothing is with more care to be avoided, then such a kind of
Civility as may be mistaken for Invitation. It will not be enough for you to keep your self free from
any criminal Engagements’ for if you do that with either raiseth Hopes, or
createth Discourse, there is a Spot thrown up on your Good Name; and those kind
of Stains are the harder to be taken out, being dropped upon you by the Man’s
Vanity, as well as by the Woman’s Malice” (99).
GROUP 3
·
CENSURE:
“Your Wit will be misapplied…if it is wholly directed to discern the Faults of
others, when it is so necessary to be so often used to mend and prevent your
own. The sending our Thoughts too
much abroad, hath the same Effect, as when a Family never stayeth at home;
Neglect and Disorder naturally followeth; as it must do within our selves, if
we do not frequently turn our Eyes inwards, to see what is amiss with us, where
it is a sign we have an unwelcome Prospect, when we do not care to look upon
it, but rather seek our Consolations in the Faults of those we converse with” (129-130).
Works Cited:
Annenberg
Foundation. “Archive Search: Fisher’s Tavern in Dedham.” American Passages, 2011. Web.
1 Nov. 2011.
Bush,
Sargeant. “Introduction to ‘The Journal of Madam Knight.’” Journeys in New
Worlds. Eds. William Andrews, Sargent Bush,
Jr., Annete Kolodny, Amy Lang, and Daniel Shea. Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin P, 1990. 67-84. Print.
Halifax, George Savile
Marquia. The Lady’s New-Year’s Gift, or,
Advice to a Daughter. London: Charing-Cross, 1688. Open Library, 2009. Web. 1 Oct.
2011.
Imbarrato,
Susan Clair. “Chapter 2: Ordinary Travel—Public Houses and Travel Conditions.” Traveling Women. Athens: Ohio UP, 2006.
53-88. Print.
Knight, Sarah Kemble. “The
Journal of Madam Knight.” Journeys in New
Worlds. Eds. William Andrews,
Sargent Bush, Jr., Annete Kolodny, Amy Lang, and Daniel Shea. Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin P, 1990.
85-116. Print.
Mather, Cotton. Ornaments for the
Daughters of Zion. 1692. Web. Evans Digital. 1 Nov. 2011.
Michaelsen, Scott. "Narrative and
Class in a Culture of Consumption: The Significance of Stories in Sarah Kemble
Knight's Journal." MLA International Database 21.2 (1994): n.p.
Web. 23 Sept. 2011.
Stern, Julia. “To Relish and Spew: Disgust as Cultural Critique in the
Journal of Madam Knight.” Legacy. 14.1 (1997):
n.p. MLA International Database. Web. 23 Sept. 2011.
[1] Throughout
this study guide, the original spelling from the primary documents has been
utilized, many times varying from our contemporary spelling.
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