Letting the Flesh Fly: Topsy, Time, Torture, and Transfiguration

“Letting the Flesh Fly” by Jayna Brown examines the portrayal of the character Topsy from the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Topsy’s is a young black female child who’s character was created and illustrated by adult aged white women. The performance of the childlike character has vast differences in the rendering between white women verses black woman.

In the section Talking the Body (p.59), Brown discusses Elizabeth’s Grosz’s, “Volatile Bodies” and explains the body as a vessel. I found Brown’s questions instrumental in helping me understand the daunting depiction of Topsy. “The vessel has two interpretations. One the one hand, this vessel can be occupied by ‘animating, willful subjectivity; on the other hand, it can be thought of as a ‘passive…object over which straggles between the ‘inhabitant’ and others/exploiters may be possible.”  Brown goes on to discus the second part of the interpretation as the body as an instrument that requires discipline and training. I found this particular explanation of the body somewhat interesting as how it explains the merge of race, performance, and gender of this distinct character.

On page 71, Brown describes “female minstrel acts were performances of white women’s proprietary access to black body, as surrogate, as servant, as always available for use.” Why would these white subjects feel “free” in a character that is described “a conditioned rebellion against proscriptions of white female duty (p.74) through the vessel of a slave? On page 76, Topsy is described “the quintessential symbol of black artistic denigration and humiliation,” is this the interpretation of whites in regard to delineating black bodies?

Brown, Letting the Flesh Fly

     Brown’s first approach in chapter two of the “urban stage” in relation to the “female race delineation” she outlines the “strange choreographies” of several musical plays and the rolls of Topsy. (p. 56) What I found “strange” and shocking, was the scientific racial theories of the “nineteenth century ”which Brown titles “The Disease Called ‘Rascality’”. These theories were widely known and “pitched to the popular” through “press”, “lectures”, and “visual languages”. Visual language for example is a universal message, we need not look beyond the single photo of Marcus Garvey and its impact. I wonder how much these scientific theories influenced the urban stage and hindered black female’s from being hired to perform the roll of Topsy. (p. 77)

     One of the main emphasis of influence applied to racial differences is outlined by “George Combe” were indicated by “the mental constitutions”. (p. 78) Just one year before Stowe’s writing released in 1852, “Samuel Cartwright” claimed the negro race had a disease that was “adapt to do mischief”, cause “violation of the rights of property”. Although this was before emancipation, and applied for the use of “disciplinary tactics”, I argue that these theories along with many others resonated in the general public, and still do today, yet may have had an impact on the lack of black performers allowed to play the role of Topsy. (p. 79) Although author Stowe along with many others, may have been empathetic due to the horrifying truths of survivor “Mary Prince” (p. 80), thus Stowe may have created Topsy as a product of inhumane treatment.

     On page 74, Brown states “the subversive quality is not equally present”. In some cases, “the white female minstrel stage” in “blackface”, was used only to “disrobe authority”, of the “white female duty” in regard to “matronage and entitlement”, and/or the thin claim to embrace  empathy for the black female as a commodity. Eventually, “Black women’s performances of Topsy carried different meanings…” (p. 57) yet “The role always signifies (ownership) of the black female body.” (p. 74) It is appalling to me to know the many scientific theories may have assisted beliefs abroad to suppress black female performers from the roll of Topsy and others. On pages 73 and 74, Brown suggest as to why “black performers” were kept from the roll of Topsy, noting Topsy had become “tamed” do to the death and love of Eva and Christian teachings. In my understanding, Brown speaks of the inner expression Topsy displayed through seemingly rebellious actions, and was unable to identify with until introduced to compassion. This inner compassion held prisoner in the body longing to escape through hands and feet, as Brown states, speaking for avoided black performers, “They might have run away with it”. Yet the minstrels continued emphasizing and playing off Topsy’s seemingly rebellious actions.                  

Discussion of Brown's, "Letting the Flesh Fly"

            In Jayna Brown’s chapter, “Letting the Flesh Fly,” she primarily explores the performance of Topsy, a character from the book rendered into play, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. What I found most fascinating in Brown’s chapter is the discussion of white women in black-face playing the role of Topsy. Brown claims that the role of Topsy was created by and for white women, and not male cross-dressers (p. 68). For thirty-five years, Mrs. Caroline Howard, an adult white woman, played the very young role of Topsy. Brown explains that women were seen as comparable to children, both being susceptible to misbehaving and in need of discipline and guidance (p. 71). White women may have enjoyed playing the role of Topsy because it enabled them to feel free of “white female duties” (p. 74). But Brown makes an important distinction between white subjects playing the role of Topsy versus black subjects. Brown claims that the “playful refusal to behave” that white women enjoyed “…should not be construed as an act of alliance with unfree black female subjects,” and instead these performances should be seen as, “white women’s proprietary access to the black female body, as surrogate, as servant, as always already available for use” (p. 71).

In one of Brown’s most compelling statements throughout her chapter, she claims, “The use of the idea of black suffering, an icon for all types of suffering, does not imply active alliance with black people or their continued struggles for space and resources” (p. 72). Although later in the chapter, Brown explains that the body can never actually be owned (p. 85). This is seen in the way in which Topsy, as played by a black subject, changes the overall experience of the performance. Brown claims Topsy becomes a trope for black female expressive resilience and defiance (p. 77); a far more powerful and meaningful experience than when played by a white subject.

Racial Mimicry and Chandler's Mental Metempsychosis

            Brown’s chapter on the (mis)appropriated representation of the black body into various forms of performative entertainment strikes me as effectively poignant throughout. In her analysis, the author highlights the undercurrent of power exerted in the form of racial mimicry, and the position white women held within the hegemonic hierarchy contingent on skin color. She even examines how the subtle perpetuation of the black body as commodity permeated the anti-slavery cause among white female abolitionists, notably Elizabeth Chandler.

            I found Chandler’s appeal to women to participate in her conception of “Mental Metempsychosis” to be quite disturbing. Brown defines this process, in which “a woman was to invite the suffering soul of the (dead) slave woman, and her painful physical memory, to pass into her own body.” I believe that Brown rightfully criticizes the intent of this practice as remarkably self-serving, even “pornographic in its urge.” She emphasizes that “the use of the idea of black suffering, an icon for all types of suffering, does not imply active alliance with black people or their continued struggles for space and resources.”

            I would place additional emphasis on her use of the word “icon” from this quote, for its allusion to the normalized Christian tradition in which the religiously devout would self-prostrate while envisioning the humiliation, torture, and crucifixion of Christ. According to Brown, the practice of “mental metempsychosis” was “meant to activate and intensify her Christian sensitivities, to make her feel as she felt in her faith the ecstasy of Christ’s suffering, a shiver through her body as she ate his flesh and drank his blood.” In this context, the black body is exploited similarly to that of a medieval relic, preferred dead to alive, in order to enhance the white woman’s spiritual connection with her god seems extremely reprehensible. (71-3)

Topsy's Representation of the Black Body

            Jayna Brown’s interpretation of central ideas raised through and about the character Topsy continuously referenced the role of the body and information brought about through the examination of Topsy’s use of her body. Essentially, Brown argued that there are two overarching understandings of Topsy’s representation of the black body. She utilized the descriptions and discussions of Topsy’s haphazard, wild movements, in addition to her inability to be injured by physical force initially as exposure of multiple racist, pseudo-scientific, long held beliefs about the black body, in reference to primitivism and power. Brown mentioned ideas of the ability to feel pain as an indication that “black Africans could be lifted up from their savage state.” (81) Yet, Topsy’s performance had the opposite interpretation because the physical attacks on Topsy’s body did not appear to reveal indications of pain. This lack of pain dehumanized Topsy. Brown, however, offers the idea that Topsy’s continued rising up after being struck could have also been interpreted as an act of defiance, disruptive resilience, and refusal of humiliation. (p 77) Additionally, Brown refers to the reference of power over the black body by the white women who acted in the role of Topsy, as well as the commodification of the black body by white slave owners. Brown, ultimately reveals that the body, black or otherwise, innately cannot be owned by an outside force; it can only be owned by its inhabitant. (p 85) Thus, the beliefs that whites could own and define black bodies are false impressions. Rather, Brown refers to Topsy’s dancing body as a “reclaimable trope of black expressive transfiguration,” which represents the notion that blacks can control the appearance and understanding of their bodies. (p 77)

            Brown essentially offers two juxtaposing interpretations of Topsy’s role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin as it relates to the black body. Her performance could potentially be perceived through either meaning. What effect does Brown’s reinterpretation of Stowe’s character Topsy have on understandings of the black body, especially that of the black female child? Could Topsy’s performance perhaps legitimately indicate elements of each interpretation or is Brown correct in dismantling the initial representations of the performance and indicating alternative views?