Introduction:
The Woman Of Colour, A Tale is an anonymously written novel written about a young biracial girl named Olivia Fairfield in 1800s England. Olivia was born in Jamaica as a result of a secretive sexual relationship between her mother, an enslaved woman, and her father, her mother’s enslaver. Her mother died in childbirth and Olivia was raised by her father. When Oliva’s father died, his will declared that Olivia must marry her cousin Augustus in England to receive her inheritance. The novel follows every step of Olivia’s dramatic journey as she seeks a new land and society that treats her in an unprecedented way due to her mixed race. The tale is told through letters Olivia has written to her mentor, teacher, and motherly figure, Mrs. Milbanke. Olivia used the word “your” in her letters to Mrs. Milbanke in an effort to give herself an attachment to a person, place and time that is home. This use of pronouns connects Olivia to her past while giving her a stronger personality through her future.
Close reading:
Olivia used the word “your” in her letters to Mrs. Milbanke in an effort to give herself an attachment to a person, place, and time that is home. Olivia’s use of “your” is really a metonymy as she makes herself apart or a belonging of Mrs. Milbanke, but is not actually hers. Here, we see how Olivia’s longing for the familiarity of home and family is represented through the language pattern “your Olivia”. Additionally, metonymy provides a connection between Olivia and Mrs. Milbanke. Without any real family alive, saying “your” makes Olivia have a history. Olivia uses these letters as a vessel of ease as she is debriefing these very difficult times. Olivia is single and at her age in this society, she would ideally be engaged or wed. She wants to be Augustus’s “your” but he turns out to secretly have a wife and child. Therefore, she is nobody in England’s “your” like she is to Mrs. Milbanke. The constant repetition of calling herself “your Olivia” is a self reminder that she is loved, desired, and never alone. Olivia refers to herself as “your poor girl” (TWOC 53) as she seeks sympathy in her unimaginable pain.
We can use these letters to further understand Olivia’s relationship with Mrs. Milbanke. For example, when she signed a letter, “I am always your own affectionate child – your own Olivia Fairfield” (TWOC 63), the reader knows that Mrs. Milbanke was a motherly figure for her. Referring to herself as “Your own affectionate and grateful Oliva Fairfield” (TWOC 37) is Olivia’s way of defying her aunt’s racist thoughts of her. “Your Olivia” can also represent Olivia’s sense of pride. Olivia is making a stand and being true to her “sense of blackness”. Throughout the novel, Olivia proves herself to be a strong-headed independent woman. She educates her young cousin who is being taught anti-black morals and false information. She makes her own way of living that goes against her father’s will and society. “Your Olivia” is a form of sharing how Miss Milbanke should be proud to call her her own.
The keyword “your” can be broadened into the idea of ownership and possession. Humans are not meant to be alone. We live with families, go out with friends, and travel with groups. Olivia being alone in this foreign country is completely isolating. Throughout The Woman of Colour, the characters use pronouns to establish their relationship with each other, especially within their political status. Olivia seemingly belongs to her cousins as she can not survive without their income. Without even considering race, we see Olivia’s heavy reliance on them turning into an unhealthy power dynamic. Olivia’s aunt does not hesitate to remind Olivia that she is a woman of color in a wealthy white home that does not fully accept her as one of them. Her aunt repeatedly behaves in ways or uses certain phrases to “own” Olivia and reiterate that she is under their control. There is also the factor that Olivia must belong to Augustus, as his wife, in order to receive her inheritance. In this time period, husbands seemingly controlled their wives’ lives.
Critical Conversation:
Sarah Salih writes about Oliva’s use of pronouns in a much broader sense in her work The Woman of Colour. A Tale. Anonymous (1808) (review). Slih explains how “Olivia aligns herself with Jamaican and English people, black and white, deploying an elastic first-person plural pronoun:
“We are considered an inferior race, but little removed from the brutes, because the Almighty Maker of all created beings has tinged our skins with jet instead of ivory! I say our, for though the jet has been faded to the olive in my own complexion, I am not ashamed to acknowledge my affinity with the swarthiest n**** that was ever brought from Guinea’s coast!” (TWOC 53).
Olivia is a free woman and she is not labeled as “black” except by those trying to insult her. She is proud of her mother’s ancestry and proud to wear part of her mother’s skin. This quote can be put into conversation with Olivia’s use of pronouns. We see her use terms such as “we” and “our” when referring to the black population, evidently grouping herself a part of that community. Surrounded by mostly white, racist, people in England, Olivia explains how they were all made by the same and even though he happens to make some of them with darker skin, they are all still equal human beings.
Olivia’s use of pronouns demonstrates how she takes great pride in her identity. One critic, Nikrouz Jafarzadeh, argues “On most occasions, minor black female characters act with bravery to support white female characters, who occupy the role of protagonist in the plot or title of the novel. On rare occasions, a black female character is portrayed in a novel as the main character that is accompanied by white females” (Jafarzadeh 1). Olivia’s role in this story is to go against the grain. Not only is she a main black character, but she is a woman who refuses marriage. Her story is evidently revolutionary. Pronouns such as “your” give Oliva the strength to assert herself in this new society and forge her own path in a traditional world.
Conclusion:
Olivia can be compared to Mary Seacole in The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole. In her book, Seacole tells the story of her work during the Crimean war. Despite her heroic behavior, Seacole never had anyone by her side. Her mother and husband died before this journey leaving her to endure these unimagine experiences solo. Similar to Olivia, Seacole didn’t have anyone in her corner to confide in. These two women went on strenuous journeys across the world by themselves and had to navigate unprecedented emotions and confrontations of race. Olivia is just a young woman all alone trying to make the best out of her life and uses pronouns to establish herself.
Work cited:
Dominique, Lyndon Janson. The Woman of Colour: A Tale. Broadview editions, 2008.
Nikrouz, Jafarzadeh. Race, Mimicry, Ambivalence, and Third Space in The Woman of Colour: A Tale (1808). Mar. 2022.
Salih, Sara. “The Woman of Colour. A Tale. Anonymous (1808) (Review).” Eighteenth Century Fiction, vol. 21, no. 3, Apr. 2009, pp. 448–50. muse.jhu.edu, https://doi.org/10.1353/ecf.0.0055.