Home > The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Summary & Study Guide > The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Group > Question and Answer

Question:

Answers:

1. 
   dymatsuoka

   eNotes Editor

   After Joe is killed by a horse on Mr. Clyde's ranch, his daughter Ella gets married to a young boy called Gable, who is also a skillful horse breaker.  The couple moves to Texas, taking Ella's sister Clara with them.

   Jane's journey is more a journey of the heart than one of distance.  Although she had once determined to move to the North, she spends the majority of her life in the state of Louisiana.  A couple of years after Joe's death, Jane meets Felton Burkes, a fisherman on a riverboat.  She follows him up the St. Charles River and lives with him for about three years, "then one day he was gone".  Jane is not terribly upset about being abandoned, however, because soon after she realizes that Burkes is not coming back, her "son" Ned returns from fighting the war in Cuba, and settles nearby with his wife and children.

   Ned is active in an organization which encourages blacks to fight for equal opportunities, in keeping with the teachings of Frederick Douglass.  He is eventually assassinated by a hired Creole killer, Albert Cluveau.  After Ned's death, Jane moves to a plantation in nearby Samson, where she spends the remaining years of her life working in the fields and in the main house, becoming a respected member of the local church and the community, and eventually participating in the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1900s.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/autobiography-miss/summary

   Rate answer:

   • Flag as inappropriate

   Posted by dymatsuoka on Friday August 15, 2008 at 5:11 PM