In his book titled Myths America Lives By, Richard T. Hughes examines the paradoxical inclusion of white supremacist beliefs in the Christian religion, explaining that in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, not only were the majority of white Christians blind to this inconsistency, they had (whether subconsciously or not) grafted it into the doctrine as a fundamental part of their faith. Hughes states, “the only way the nation could protect itself from the implications of this devastating contradiction was to embrace […] the notion of white supremacy as somehow compatible with the Christian religion” (22). He later explains that while white Christians were blind to this clashing divergence of beliefs, both free and enslaved black people were keenly aware of it, demonstrating a greater understanding of the faith than the educated, white authorities who sought to convert and enlighten them. One of the most note-worthy Christian scriptures along these lines comes from the biblical book of James in which the author outlines the central purpose of religious practice: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (Jas. 1:27 NIV). It is remarkable, then, to examine the shadowed history of the United States under an alleged ‘Christian’ title and witness actions directly antithetical to this depiction of a “pure” religion—the enforced separation of families, children torn from their parents, wives from their husbands; the dark soils of torture, abuse, robbery, slavery, murder, genocide, all stains upon the true face of the nation, masked in the white-washed cloak of the Christian name.
Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins presents these two contradictory sides of Christianity in her short story titled, “Talma Gordon”: the first is Christianity grounded upon white-supremacy, that which houses the members of the Canterbury Club of Boston, Captain Jonathan, and Talma’s fiancé Edward Turner. The second is a Christianity ostensibly drawn from the aforementioned passage in the book of James, a “pure and faultless” religion of serving and caring for others, specifically portrayed in the adoption of the young Isabel Franklin, the care for her abandoned mother, and Dr. William Thorton’s marriage to Talma. By juxtaposing the two throughout the plot, Hopkins underscores the hypocrisy of white supremacy within the Christian religion, creating a clear and strong case of irony, and ultimately undermining the religious justifications for white supremacy at the time.
Hopkins opens her story with the depiction of an elite club of white, Episcopalian gentlemen gathering to discuss the matter of expanding Anglo-Saxon influence throughout the world.[1] It is noteworthy that the second representative to voice an opinion on the subject matter, following the eloquent arguments of a respected jurist in favor of expansion, is a theologian “of world-wide fame,” named Joseph Whitman (Hopkins 881). The phonetic structure of his name evokes a connection to that of George Whitefield, the prominent figure in the first Great Awakening who “More than anyone else,” as Hughes explains, “…helped ignite th[e] revival fires” (Hughes 135-136). Hughes details that while this Great Awakening served to spark religious fervor and the sentiment of “chosenness” within white Christian communities, blacks were ultimately excluded from the impartial justice, mercy, and charity which resultantly flowed from the revival.[2] It is interesting, then, that Hopkins decided to name the theologian of the story—the representation of respected Christian figures and movements in the United States—“Whitman,” or rather white-man, highlighting the nature of the exclusivity characterizing Christianity throughout U.S. history and at the time of her story’s composition.
As this part of the story is narrated in the third-person plural, it is clear that the speaker is an elite, white, and Christian male included in the society of the Canterbury Club. This perspective provides the audience with direct insight into the ruling minds and contradictory thoughts of this community. The fact that the speaker sees in the theologian merely an “idealized face” upon which “heaven had set the seal of consecration,” although he—the icon of true religion—agrees with the paradoxical implications of expansion on the grounds of religious “opportunity,” reveals the stifling blindness and groupthink dilemma of these Christians dogmatically promoting white supremacy as part of their faith (Hopkins 881). To the speaker, this observation is sincere, yet to the audience it appears remarkably sarcastic.
Hopkins creates a similar sentiment through Jeanette Gordon’s letter to her sister, Talma, detailing their father’s justification for excluding them from the family inheritance—the history of their mother and first wife of Captain Jonathan, Isabel Franklin. As Captain Jonathan relays, while on a tour of the south, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, “befriended an octoroon girl who had been abandoned by her white lover…They, being Northern born, thought little of caste distinction because the child showed no trace of Negro blood. They determined to adopt it” (Hopkins 889). Here, Hopkins directly inserts actions into the plot that are comparable to those of “pure and faultless” religion found in the book of James. The Franklins’ acts of befriending a young woman who was “abandoned by her white lover” and then (as implied, in a benevolent manner) adopting her child, making her heiress to their entire fortune, elicits a direct connection to the Christian exhortation found in James to “look after orphans and widows in their distress” (Jas. 1:27 NIV). Similarly, the fact that the Franklins “thought little of caste distinction,” indicates a vast separation from the rest of the western world—the world of whitened Christianity—further highlighting the purity of the Franklins’ religion as they, above all others in the story thus far, kept themselves “from being polluted by the world[’s]” whitened doctrines (Jas. 1:27 NIV).
The emotion which the Franklins’ story elicits through the depiction of genuine care, mercy, and love toward Isabel and her abandoned mother halts abruptly as Captain Jonathan turns the narrative toward himself and his whitened Christianity, claiming “righteous wrath” upon the discovery of “Negro blood” in his family (Hopkins 889). Through this shift, this overt juxtaposition between the two sides of Christianity, the audience again experiences a profound sense of irony. While the speaker (Captain Jonathan) expresses his narrow-minded perspective and frustration, the audience, seeing the whole picture, perceives authorial sarcasm behind it.
Similarly, upon discovering the presence of 1/32nd percent of African blood in his fiancee, Talma, Edward Turner reacts, “I could stand the stigma of murder, but add to that the pollution of Negro blood! No man is brave enough to face such a situation” (Hopkins 890). John Cullen Gruesser comments on this excerpt in the coda of his book, The Empire Abroad and the Empire at Home, explaining that “in the United States in the late 1800s even the smallest percentage of African ancestry represented a greater taint than the most heinous of criminal acts” (Gruesser 123). Edward viewed Talma’s small percentage of African blood as a greater stain upon her person than the potential reality of a murderous act on her hands. Here, Hopkins again draws attention to the passage of “pure and faultless” religion as she juxtaposes it with the whitened perspective of “keeping oneself from being polluted by the world.” In this brilliant situation of irony, Edward accuses Talma of being polluted while he himself carries out the antithesis of “pure and faultless” religion defined in James, and thus becomes the epitome of “polluted” himself. By abandoning Talma, he leaves her as both an uncared-for orphan and in a comparable state to that of a widow (as she lost her lover and promised caretaker).
The final revelation of Talma Gordon as the wife of Dr. Thorton indicates that the only man in the Canterbury Club in support of amalgamation is also the man who explicitly followed the way of “pure and faultless” religion as outlined in James, caring for the orphan, Talma, who came to him in distress, and reversing her station of an ‘abandoned lover’ to one immeasurably loved and valued.
February 10, 2020
Works Cited
Gruesser, John Cullen. “Coda: Pauline Hopkins, The Colored American Magazine, and the
Critique of Empire Abroad and at Home in “Talma Gordon.” The Empire Abroad and the
Empire at Home. University of Georgia Press, Athens, 2012.
Holy Bible, New International Version, BibleHub, https://biblehub.com/james/1-27.htm.
Hopkins, Pauline Elizabeth. “Talma Gordon.” Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. C,
Ed. Paul Lauter, Wadsworth, Boston, 2006.
Hughes, Richard, T. Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories that Give Us
Meaning. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2018.
[1] On p. 881 of Hopkin’s Talma Gordon, the second footnote explains that The Canterbury Club was “an Episcopalian social club.”
[2] See pp. 135-138 of Hughes’ Myths America Lives By