Audience and Purpose

An excerpt from The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole (1857)

This excerpt is a memoir extracted from the autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole. It follows all conventions of memoirs, namely direct narration, hindsight wisdom, dialogue and anecdotes. Direct narration is evident in the repeated use of ‘I´ throughout the extract, as well as from the content being a direct recounting of the author's history. The author also provides multiple instances of hindsight wisdom in her observations on death and life, saying that, ”Death is always terrible – no one need be ashamed to fear it.” Similarly, she reflects on her relationship with the surgeon in, “I think he had some fondness for me… I used to…weep over him in a very weak and silly manner perhaps.”  Notable characters are also given their own voice, in the surgeon's “Let me lay my head upon your breast.” Finally, it was anecdotal as she recounted a specific event from her past – her falling in love with the surgeon and healing people with yellow fever in Jamaica.

The aim of the piece was to recount her experiences, and to retell her emotions on them. It is likely that the ideal audience were speakers of English, perhaps even from England. We see this in the sympathy she expresses with them, “the mother country pays a dear price for the possession of her colonies,” which demonstrates Seacole referring to her as the "mother country" - reflecting a possibility that she is English. In the advice Seacole gives on death, "...no one need be ashamed to fear it," she offers support for people who have lost loved ones, and it would have aided readers at the time who had lost relations to yellow fever (or other diseases) overseas. By writing about foreign experiences for an English audience, Seacole may have been aiming to target readers who were interested in travel and exploring the word, but couldn't actually do so.

The content of the text primarily reflects the suffering of the deaths that she had to witness as a nurse, and recounts the brief relationship she had with the surgeon. As mentioned earlier, the ideas that she conveys about death may serve to provide insight and help to any readers dealing with it in the family. The very personal retelling of her feelings for the surgeon (whose name she did not disclose) establishes this text as a memoir. In the context of a memoir, telling intimate 'secrets' like this one makes the text seem more authentic, and helps the reader understand her better since we see a more complete picture of a person with secrets, fears etc. Love and death are, after all, universal and the "silly manner" which she talked to the surgeon in is something we can all identify with (acting sillier around certain people....). In all, the intimate contents of this excerpt cements the authenticity of the autobiography and conveys the message that the author is writing genuine feelings.

The mood of the piece is friendly, encouraging and deeply personal.  As this is a memoir, Seacole reflects on her life and tells the story of it as if the reader is her friend. While the initial recounting of death made the tone depressing, she lightened it up with the story of the surgeon. She even states that "I do not willingly care to dwell upon scenes of suffering and death." By changing the focus, the memoir turns into an uplifting (albeit sad) piece with a hopeful message behind it. Seacole also concludes with the peaceful passing of the surgeon, again focusing more on the good man that he was ("his kind heart feigned a feeling that he saw would bring me joy") as opposed to his death. The final effect is a piece whose mood imparts feelings about the strength of the human spirit, even without explicitly saying so.

Since it is a memoir, it is written from Seacole's firsthand perspective. She uses 'I' repeatedly and states her feelings and opinions on what she went through. As mentioned earlier, Seacole identifies with being English (refers to England as "the mother country"), and this would have been the only bias in how she saw the events around her. It led her to sympathize with the English in Jamaica and tell their story of suffering. Her diction is very formal, employing an older structure of English, which was probably the style of 1857. For example, Seacole uses the lengthy "I do not willingly care to dwell upon scenes of suffering and death" when she could simply have said (in a more modern fashion), "I do not want to speak of suffering and death". In our modern 21st century context, this diction is out of place and evokes images of archaic times. It may even prevent a current audience from identifying with her, as her language is so different from our current structure. Elliptical sentences are used, as are pronouns, but the manner in which more information is added to sentences by including colons and semicolons (creating very long sentences like the first one of the second paragraph, which goes on for five lines) is very different from modern writing and distinguishes Seacole's memoir as an older piece.

Word Count: 838