The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

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Summary: Miss Jane Pittman
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The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is presented as the taped memories of a 110yo black woman whose life spanned the era from slavery, thru the Civil War, and on into the civil rights era in the 1960s. Ernest J. Gaines set his novel in rural southern Louisiana, and, listening to Jane's marvelous language, we follow her life from one of utter servitude to her ultimate confrontation of the white power structure. It is a book of grace, magic, history, and redemption.


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Summary: Gaines is a master of suspense
Review: A friend of mine encouraged me to read Gaines. I was not disappointed, I should say. And "The Autobiography" is the first of his novels that I read. Overall, I loved the text though at times you had the feeling that the plot was not moving. Gaines probably exceedingly multiplied the episodes, making the novel a bit unnecessarily long. But I loved the style, very close to orality and storytelling which the book is supposed to be constructed upon as it is narrated by Miss Jane Pittman. Gaines masterfully uses derision, irony and false naivety to create distance. Above all, Gaines is a master of suspense. The climactic scene of the pretended rape bears witness to that: the perplexity as to whether what happened besieges the reader until the narrator sorts everything out. The novel lacks a bit dramatization and "thickness" but I strongly advise you to read it.

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Summary: Aims to shatter convention, but fails to even crack it.
Review: Gaines has written a book that starts out promising but ends up being about as deep as Jane's slave name, "Ticey." He does nothing to transcend the hackneyed images of former slaves. It's almost as if, for all his groundbreaking intentions, he's afraid to change public perception too much. He seems to feel that, if he challenges common doctrine to the point where people will have to reconsider their convictions, then he will be overstepping his bounds. But isn't that the point of nonconformist novels such as The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman? To contest that which is accepted, no matter the cost or means of getting there? Instead Gaines pretends to be an iconoclast with this novel, and, in doing so, leaves his characters as mere caricatures, their motives and accomplishments just meaningless accessories to their sketchiness.

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Summary: A boring and un-educating book
Review: I chose a book to read for English class. I figured that The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman would be a fun and/or interesting book. It was neither. The book started off great. Ticey "Jane" and the others from her plantation are released. Even though they are free from slavery, many whites still disliked blacks. They killed their whole group of northbound free men and women, other than Jane and Ned. Jane is repeatedly told to stop, however, she continues on and doesn't listen to anyone. Then all of a sudden. She decides to stop and live the next hundred years of her life in Louisiana! The person lived for 110 years. She lived through so many advances and yet the author isn't able to make her interesting to me. I also liked her boy, Ned, who grows up to be a teacher and does everything in his power to let everyone know what the whites had done to them, and to teach them the religion that they should know and couldn't learn anywhere else. Another horrible fact is that the book is untrue. It could be, and most likely is, partly true, however, I think it would be more interesting if it had actually happened because then you could admire the character and maybe relate to the characters doings. The book wasn't the worst I have ever read, but it ranked right up there. It is the most boring and most un-educating book I have read in years. Some people may like this book, but I certainly did not.

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Summary: This Book Is An Definite
Review: I felt that this book really tells how it was for women in the late 1800's to earliy 1900's. This autobiography was well worth reading. At times I felt like I knew what was really happening. Reading this book made me appriciate how well I am respected by men. I gave it three stars because it was kind of hard to get through. Some of the chapters had thick dialog. Meaning it was hard to understand the way they talked. It's so different from the way we talk now. But on the other hand it was really informative. Reading this book (like I said before) really made me feel like I was there washing the dishes, or out in the hot sun pulling weeds.

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Summary: The Autobiography of Jane Pittman was very interesting.
Review: I found The Autobiography of Jane Pittman to be a very interesting book. This book does not leave too much of the gory or violent details out, it tells it plain and simple. The book is almost like a history book about slavery but it just makes it more interesting and is based on one persons life after slavery not the whole African-American population. It doesnt make it look so one kind of race or person is better then the other it just tells what happened. It starts out with an eleven year old girl that is a slave and ends up with an elderly woman with much knowlegde. the experiences that Jane has are explained in detail but not so much detail it makes them boring . I found it very interesting to see what she thought or said in some of the situations that she was in , for instance when one fo her friends told her that they had to kill Ned. Ned is also and important part in this book , he was three when his mom died , so Jane cared for him and looked after him as though he was her child , even at the age of eleven. Some fo things Jane talks about I found to be very true even as of now. When she said "We all choose a person to be the "One". We might not say this out loud but we think this in our heads. We know if they are the "One" by their actions when they get older. I think this is a very true statement. I think in a group of friends or a close family we choose one person to rise above. We are a little bit harder on this person then we would normally be , just to make sure they succeed.This book helps you understand more about slavery and what it was like after they were free. It doesnt just teach you it helps you feel what you would have felt in their situation. It helps you to see how the people thought in all the different situations. It gives light to boths views on the situation, one side more then the other because of who is telling the story. This story shows that some people went out of the way to help the free slaves get on thier feet and going. There were more then I thought there would have been. It shows that the only reason some people didn't help because they were scared. For instance when Jane asked people for a glass of water she got yelled at sometimes but she always got her glass of water. It helped me to understand more of the emotion in this time. There was so much intensity. The way some people thought was odd yet not near insane. They believed in voo doo. They had doctors that practiced voo doo. The way that Jane tells it they knew things that noone else knew. Also some people would assume if you said something that in some way cursed you that you had really cursed them, even if it was just said casually or out of anger. Some people would even go crazy because of the thought of being cursed. For instance when Jane told someone that "The chariots of hell would come to get him and when they did the whole town would hear him scream." Jane never had anything to do with voo doo, but still this guy was scared out of his mind. He would not sleep by himself. He thought he could hear the chariots and the day he died everyone could hear him scream. All of that because of the words Jane said. I don't think anyone now would do that, but I thought it was interesting on how he believed it and everyone believed it. I would recommend this book highly. It is a very emotional, intense, informative, and interesting book.

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Summary: This book was a page turner
Review: I read the book Miss Jane Pittman. This book was prety good because the graphic scenes. This book is about this lady named Jane. She was a slave in the South. Their master said they were free, so she set off to find Colonel Brown a yankie soldier. Instead she stopped in Louisana and lived her life.

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Summary: This was an excellent book!
Review: I read this book for my sophomore English class. I truly enjoyed this book because it gave me an insight to the way things were during those times. I thought that Miss Jane was an exceptional character and I really enjoyed following her through the course of the book. The way that Ernest Gaines portrayed each of the characters was appealing to any generation. Being from the South, I especially enjoyed the southern dialect. I recommend this book to anyone. It would make a great book to read for pleasure. I became one and connected with Miss Jane. I suffered when she did and I rejoiced as she did. This book was wonderful!

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Summary: The book was Okay...
Review: I think this book showed a lot on the ways of a woman growing up after the times of slavery. I think it was a good example for and 7th grader to 10th grader learning about slavery. It was an okay book hat got a little to discriptive, and I kind of lot intrest at the end, becuse I started to get the idea of what would happen next. It also was a little to hard to follow, by the end. The got a little tedeous by the end also and since I felt like I knew what was going to happen next. Altough this book had it's upsides. It showed a good example of what happened during this time.

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Summary: MY CHILDREN LIVED 110 YEARS !!!
Review: I watched the movie when I was my children's age, (9-12). As a home schooling mom I read, (to them), one literature book a year; this year I chose this one. They loved it so much that they begged me to read it at bedtime. Since it is only November, we get to start a new one. Last year, I read Kaffar Boy (which means Nigger Boy) an autobiography by. Mark Mathabane.
For those of you who were confused by The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, maybe you should have someone read it to you. And by the way...she was never going to Ohio...if you but only knew !!!