An Analysis Of Ma Rainey's Misery Blues '

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, when described in Blue Legacies and Black Feminism, was seen by Angela Davis as one of the greatest feminist blues musicians of her time. One view that Ma Rainey presented in her songs was her ideas on marriage. Specifically, Rainey feels that getting married shouldn’t be valued over “non or extramarital relationships (pg 16- 20). She feels that, while marriage isn’t a bad thing, overvaluing it to the point of presenting it as a need for women to have is a bad thing (pg 16- 20). She presents this theme in many of her works, but presents it most clearly in her work “Misery Blues”, in which, she presents a women truly oppressed by marriage to the point that she was falsely led to a man who promised her marriage, only to renege on his promise (pg 16). Another reason for her devalued
In the song she states, “ Lord, it ain’t no maybe ‘about my man bein’ rough; but when it comes to lovin’, he sure can strut his stuff” (pg 32). Here she shows it most clearly, that in her feministic blues, she tries to help black women see that they aren’t the only people being abused by widely presenting the idea of abuse, while also showing these women how backwards their ideas of abusively loving their spouse really is (pg 32). In terms of her ideas on the black community, she sings about the imprisonment that is felt by being in a black community (pg 102). In the song, “Chain Gang Blues”, she presents the idea of a woman committing a minor crime, yet she is sent on a ninety-day sentence to join the chain gang/ convict lease system, which was not far off from slavery itself (pg 102-103). This song presents the hardship of blacks under the Black Codes. They were imprisoned, many for minor crimes, in this case adultery, and were sent to prison in which they were leased out to plantations to work rough hours so that the prison may receive a profit in return. Through the songs that “Ma” Rainey sung she would exemplify both her racial and/or class identities (pg