Though I expected the narrative to feature an anticlimactic summary of Ann Carson’s later years, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of adventure and excitement present in the last third of the story. However, the shift in narrators made it a little more difficult to get through—Mary Clarke’s portion of the text is much less interesting to read. It also reads slower, for me at least, because Clarke seems to rush through a multitude of events and characters, whereas Ann spends time in describing each event carefully. For example, while the entire first volume centers around the momentous death of Captain Carson and the failed kidnapping of the Governor of Pennsylvania, this second volume, and particularly Clarke’s portion, presents a type of “catalogue of ships,” wherein most characters lose singularity because Clarke has so much to fit into this last section of the narrative. Nevertheless, there are certain things I love about Clarke’s own narration, particularly the insight she gives us on early American printing processes. I found it fascinating that we learn what business deals and negotiations occurred when attempting to create a printed text. For example, the publisher, Mr. D., reads little or nothing of the narrative before he agrees to print it. Yet, he somehow knows that the tale will be highly successful. I was most surprised at how many people were involved in the printing process—moneymen, lawyers, printers, etc. As Dr. Williams noted last week, the fact that this narrative discusses at length its own publication process makes this tale unusual and yet informative. This last section of the text is also highly interesting in terms of interpreting authorial voice in the first two sections. For example, though Mrs. Clarke freely admits that she wrote the entire “autobiography” of Ann, the tone is nevertheless different. It seems that Ann’s direction highly influenced the text. My guess: the element of revenge alters the tone of Ann’s first-person narration and Mrs. Clarke’s third-person relation of the same character. Yet, I suspect that Clarke might also be out for some sort of vengeance, perhaps against Ann herself. Though Mrs. Clarke avers that she continued to care for Ann, I can’t help detecting a trace of bitterness when she recounts how Ann abused her trust and a sense of self-satisfied “I-told-you-so” once Ann gets caught passing counterfeit bills. (By the way, did anyone else notice the term cogniac, which apparently means counterfeiter? I thought that was an interesting word).
Ann’s fall from grace occurs because she turns good money into counterfeit bills. Her subsequent arrest and trial does seem very carnivalesque, just like her entire “biography.” As Isabelle Lehuu notes in her book Carnival of Print: Popular Print Media in Antebellum America, antebellum America experienced an onslaught of new printed materials in the marketplace, and these printed works threatened the “orthodox uses of print culture.” These new forms of literature invaded the market and “[t]he festive carnival that burst onto the printed page during the antebellum period was not opposed to but rather belonged to the marketplace.” Indeed, Ann and Mrs. Clarke know quite well what to expect from the marketplace. I find their knowledge of financial and legal matters fascinating. Two independent women, in the early American republic, knew tons about business, real estate, how to sell a book, and law. While I do not trust Ann or Mrs. Clarke, I cannot help admire the amount of historical information the narrator provides. Further, Ann’s story is certainly carnivalesque, especially this final crime and trial scene. It seems that for Ann, the carnival occurs whenever she has liberty. Only in prison is she truly able to reign in her impulses for adventure, misrule, and the complete flouting of masculine and governmental authority.
I’ll briefly mention something I found quite confusing; perhaps someone can explain this to me. Why in the world does the narrator go through this long passage filled with quotes (from pages 126-128 in my copy)? The narrator uses Shakespearean characters and play titles, verses from poems, and other quotes rapidly, sometimes the quotes do not even make sense in the passage. Is this just a moment of the narrator proving that they are well-read? I can’t seem to find any explanation for this massive amount of distracting quotes.
Hi Katie, Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful post. I liked the distinctions you made in the narrator's voice and tone between vols. 1 and 2. In some ways, the 2nd vol. is slower paced, as MC tries to cover so much time and material into one text, and she does not have the first-hand knowledge and at times can only generalize about AC. I think, though she tries to present herself as heroically sacrificing for AC, that MC is a bit holier-than-thou. She plops herself down in the middle of the text as the "heroine." Good work. dw
ReplyDelete