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Miss Jane Pittman

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Miss Jane Pittman
Miss Jane Pittman Essay
Miss Jane Pittman was an autobiography written by Ernest J. Gaines. The autobiography was published in 1971. It is set in rural Southern Louisiana and spans from the early 1860’s to the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. Throughout this paper were going to discuss the author Ernest J. Gaines, what went on throughout the story, the main characters, and the three themes. Ernest J. Gaines was born in Jan 1933 on a River Plantation in Louisiana. He was born a son of a sharecropper during the Great depression. He moved to California to join his parents who had left Louisiana during WWII. He first attended San Francisco State University till winning a writing fellowship to Strafford University. Gaines first short story was published in 1956. Gaines burned his first manuscript after the rejection from a publisher. Catherine Crainer was his first published novel in 1964 believed to be a rewrite of the burned manuscript. Gaines published 8 novels during the years. Although born generations after slavery he grew up in old slave quarters. He currently lives in Louisiana with his wife Dianne. We now are going to talk about what happened throughout the story of Miss Jane Pittman. During this story she remembered some historical event and figures throughout her 100 years of life. Jane begins telling the tale during the Civil War where she was a child. At this point her name was Ticey that one of the soldier’s had given her. She talked about fleeing the Confederate soldiers, arriving Union soldiers, and the dominant presence of the mistress of the plantation. She and Ned who was Big Laura’s boy ended up on a plantation doing work like they had done before. Ned left for the North having changed his last name to Douglas after Fredrick Douglas. He left because he knew his life was in danger. After Ned leaving Jan began her relationship with Joe Pittman. Justifying living together without marriage by saying black folk didn’t have church

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