Cuban Anti‐slavery Narrative through Postcolonial Eyes: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab

Abstract

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab (1841) has come to be regarded as an iconic work in the canon of nineteenth‐century Cuban fiction, celebrated as much for its literary pedigree as for its radical combination of anti‐slavery and feminist ideas. Yet it has been the subject of very divergent critical appraisals. This essay sets out to breathe new life into Avellaneda’s novel by interpreting it through a postcolonial optic. Drawing on ideas from the scholarship of Edward Said and Frantz Fanon, as well as the ideas of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, these pages explore the implications of its nationalist, racial, sexual and feminist politics for Sab’s anti‐slavery meaning. This postcolonial reading provides a possible solution for the conflicts between its various interpretations.

The Haunting Letter: Presence, Absence, and Writing in Sab

“…(Gómez de Avellaneda, 1997, p. 271) Williams argues that this sudden shift to the feminist message overshadows the abolitionist tilt and reduces its importance, "consigning the slavery issue to a lower place on the novel's ideological agenda" (2008, p. 170). Furthermore, Williams (2008) points out that the novel portrays a rather privileged slave, who is not only owned by a family that is shown to be benevolent towards their slaves but also, within that family, serves as a mayoral (something akin to an overseer) which is a position generally reserved for free men. By showing a privileged slave and by failing to address the financial and racial privilege of its female protagonists, the novel is in a better position to draw a connection between the two that would be much more problematic on a larger cultural plane.…”