Brief Analysis of Robert Hayden’s: Middle Passage [African American Literature 2021]
Like your standard three act structure of a story, but intricately interwoven with themes that beg the reader to look beyond its format, I note Hayden’s vivid imagery & contrasting perspectives within the Middle Passage’s three stanzas. Hayden strays from sugar-coating the middle passage and the wounds slave owners perpetuated. In the first stanza, he focuses on the environment, alluding to sharks, sickness, lashing torture, so much so that death or suicided often seemed like an escape. Shortly after, Hayden references experiences from specific slave narratives on the ship. Often, it’s easy to conglomerate Africans on the middle passage just as that — one monolithic experience. And sure, generally, the shared experience resonates collectively. However, it’s the granular experiences from Africans with distinctive backgrounds, and perspectives that shape how the reader views the middle passage to draw that consensus. From Jesus Savior and to Thou Who Walked on Galilee where he writes “that Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins; that there was one they called The Guinea Rose, and they cast lots and fought to lie with her” (Hayden, 1). By the end of the poem, Hayden intertwines contrasting perspectives.
Albeit, the slave owners. Specifically, the line that results as a motif throughout the second half of the poem, “voyage through death to life upon these shores.” (Hayden, 3). It’s grammatically written as: adjective, noun, then verb, verb noun, then adjective. A powerful punch. Reconsider the arrangement where adjective follows verb on the first and second half, and it reads “death through voyage to life upon these shores” or reverse the arrangement from the original “voyage through death to these shores upon life” and the essence changes. Hayden’s strategic arrangement of words paints a specific picture for the reader. Up to this point, Hayden includes a variety of different perspective to illustrate the brutal atmosphere Africans were doomed to face. For instance, Hayden mentions the point of view of slave owners from the Spanish Slave Ship during the Amistad period. Hayden quotes these slave owners who metaphysically “speak” to America, begging for Cinquez — the ultimate leader revolting against the abduction, to die, “I tell you that we are determined to return to Cuba with our slaves and there see justice done. Cinquez — or let us say ‘the Prince’ — Cinquez shall die.” (Hayden, 3).
For me, I think Hayden balances the contrasting perspectives to almost gloss the image he’s already finished painting by the end of the second stanza. In other words, it’s easy to conclude Hayden wants to milk out the evilness from slave owners. Under the surface though, coupled with the previous two stanzas, and the brutality of what life meant to Africans in the middle passage, the contrasting perspectives simply reveal the facts. It pencils an ink bolt. It shows the severe divide and honest disillusionment — the choice to neglect, conform within their (slave owners) savaged society. Slave owners redefined what human life bears to determine how Africans can best serve them. They sought Africans as an entirely new category of goods. Neither animal (as some documents prove that even animals wouldn’t be treated the way slaves were) nor goods (as slaves were understood as human beings) but rather a commodified means to exert power. In Africans in America, slave owners spoke about trading as a normalcy, “I understand there are some slave ships expected into York River now every day. I desire to buy me five or six slaves, where of three or four to be boys, a man, and a woman. the boys from 8 to 17 or 18, the rest as you young as you can procure” (Africans in America, 22:02). Personally, Hayden’s poem helps me better understand why conforming and overlooking small details when speaking about or to other cultures and groups, matter. More often than not, we’re raised to model after our parents. What if our parents hinder their biases and maybe even choose to treat people less than? I remember in my Arab Societies class last year; we explored this idea of the “other” and how certain groups of people within a culture find the “other” threatening. It’s lazy. The solution? Learn. Approach and socialize curiously. Questions breed understanding and understanding leads to compassion.
