Representing the Plantation Mistress in Antebellum American Literature

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the portrayal of the plantation mistress in southern women's diaries, slave narratives and abolitionist documents. More specifically, this thesis focused on exploring how nineteenth-century literary conventions and societal expectation affect the portrayal of the plantation mistress in antebellum American literature. The works of Child, Jacobs, Douglass, Stowe, Griffith and Mary Chesnut provide us with a comprehensive portrayal of the plantation mistress as seen from the perspectives of northern and southern women and former slaves. While abolitionist writers and former slaves focus more on the corrupting effect of slavery on the mistress which resulted in her violence and rage, southern women writers provide a justification for the conflicting nature of the mistress as she struggled to maintain her lady-like image while facing the reality of her life.