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The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Ernest J. Gaines, 1971
272 pp.

In Brief
The "editor" introduces the novel by explaining that after days of asking Miss Jane Pittman to tell her story to him, she finally did in the summer of 1962. He wants to hear her history because he is a teacher and her experiences have not been included in the history textbooks he uses. The teacher records Miss Jane as she speaks. Miss Jane is over a hundred years old, however, and sometimes forgets things. When she does so, her friends fill in the gaps with their memories. Since a group is contributing to her story, the editor feels that the tale belongs to all of them. Some time after the story has been gathered, Miss Jane dies, and the editor meets many of the people from her life at her funeral. Upon meeting them, the editor again reflects that Miss Jane's story applies to all of them not just herself. (From Wikipedia )

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About the Author

• Birth—January 15, 1933

• Where—Pointe Coupee, Louisiana, USA

• Education—B.A., San Francisco State University; fellowiship
   to Stanford University

• Awards—Wallace Stegner Fellow, 1957; National Endowment
   for the Arts grant, 1967; Dos Passos Prize, 1993; MacArthur
   Foundation fellow, 1993; National Book Critics Award, 1993;
   National Humanities Medal, 2000; he American Academy of
   Arts and Letters, 2000; Chevalier, Order of Arts and Letters
   (France), 2000.

• Currently—lives in San Francisco and Oscar, Louisiana


Ernest Gaines was born on a plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish near New Roads, Louisiana, which is the Bayonne of all his fictional works. He is writer-in-residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1993 Gaines received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his lifetime achievements. In 1996 he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France’s highest decorations. He and his wife, Dianne, live in Oscar, Louisiana. In addition to The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Mr. Gaines is also the author of A Lesson Before Dying, A Gathering of Old Men, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Bloodline, and Of Love and Dust. (From the publisher)

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Critics Say. . .
Miss Jane Pittman’s American journey spanned over one hundred years, from the 1860s to the 1960s, and took her from picking cotton on a Louisiana plantation to taking part in dismantling the walls of segregation in her southern town. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is her story, told in her own words (although the narrator is putatively a high school teacher who comes to interview her for a school project but soon fades to the background). In Miss Jane, Ernest Galnes created one of the most memorable women in all of American literature. Although she witnessed first hand the wrenching transition of a people from slavery to freedom, Gaines makes her more than a vehicle for that epic story. Miss Jane is a filly realized, three-dimensional character with her own loves and hates, strengths and weaknesses, which makes her observations on the incredible events around her all the more authentic and compelling. Gaines’s skill in giving her a distinct and memorable voice with which to tell her story amplifies the humanity of Miss Jane.

When her story begins, Jane is a slave girl named Ticey, still working on a plantation in Louisiana as the Civil War winds down. She changes her name to Jane at the instigation of a confederate soldier, a minor rebellion against her owners that costs her a severe beating. After emancipation, she leaves the plantation and joins up with a group of ex-slaves on their way to Ohio. The group is massacred by former confederate soldiers, with only Jane and Ned, a young boy who Jane unofficially adopts, surviving. Jane then settles in Louisiana and serves as an influence for several black men who work hard to achieve dignity and economic and political equality: first Ned, who changes his name to Ned Douglass after his hero Frederick and becomes a campaigner for the most basic civil rights for blacks, but who is eventually lynched by whites; Joe Pittman, Jane’s common-law husband and breaker of wild horses, who is killed by a black stallion; and Jimmy Aaron, a young civil rights worker born on a plantation in Louisiana, who becomes one of the movement’s martyrs.

Miss Jane is a complex character, by turns superstitious and sensible, a survivor and a risk-taker. Through the story of her life, she speaks of tolerance and human understanding, commitment and sacrifice, human dignity and its price. With The Autobiography of Mus Jane Pittman, Gaines makes the small truths, the everyday pains, and the hard choices of this woman add up to moments of illumination. The book was a bestseller and was later made into a popular television movie, which later won awards.
Sacred Fire

Readers Say. . .
(Occasionally, when there are few professional reviews, we offer helpful comments by Barnes & Nobel customers.)

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was a reviting story of the life of a young girl at the end of slavery. Freedom come when she was still a young child. This story tells the struggles and triumphs of a young child that becomes a women as she fights for her right for freedom in life. Gaines tells this story in a way that is different from all his other novels but he captures the essence of Miss Jane Pittman's life story. This was a well written easy to read novel.
Dawn , a reviewer, 11/17/2004



A Truly Inspiring Read: The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is an extremely fascinating and inspiring novel! It tells a woman's incredible tale of her journey from slavery to freedom. Through an extraordinary true account of times from after the Civil War through the 1960s, you are able to learn about more than just what a history book can teach you! This book truly engages you and each individual story teaches not only about her personal hardships, but also about the time period in general. The book begins with Ticey (a.k.a. Jane), a black girl from Louisiana living on a plantation as a slave. We not only learn about the struggles she had in slavery, but those she encountered with freedom as well. Near the beginning of the book, when she is around eleven or twelve years old, the slaves are freed. Their master calls them up to his house one day and tells them that he has hust recieved a notice saying that they are no longer slaves. Jane was overjoyed! She thinks that by being free she will no longer be treated unequal to others, or like a second-class citizen, she believes that now that she is free everything will be different. She leaves the plantation with a large group, and thinks she has left all her troubles behind, at the plantation, but she still has a lot left to learn! On their way to the north, they encounter the Secesh, but this is only the beginning of their troubles. The Secesh attack and kill everyone in the group except Jane and a young three-year-old boy named Ned. From here, she must care for him, and be like a mother to him. From here on, you can tell just how strong a woman Jane really is. Ned and Jane come across many more unexpected obstacles in their path on their way towards freedom, the north. They stumble upon everything from bitter citizens to angry Secesh, but they never give up, which is what really makes this book an extremely inspiring one. When I began the book, it didn't seem as though it would be very good. I thought it was just another book trying to teach you about history through stories that didn't engage the reader whatsoever, but I was very wrong! I really got into the book, because it wasn't like that at all! Although many of the stories didn't completely relate, and made it a little more confusing for the reader, overall I enjoyed the book immensely! I really liked the stories because they helped relate the past to what was actually happening to the people at the time. I found this to make the book a lot easier to read, becuae although you already knew that many people were slaves in the south, and then freed, you didn't know what things happened in their lives during and after slavery, and how the whole slavery experience truly effected them. I would recommend this book to almost anyone, because I feel it was an incredibly enthralling and educating book at the same time!
A reviewer, a student, 05/25/2001



Discussion Questions
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