![]() ![]() Trusting Lovey with this information seems, in one sense, like the more compassionate choice. Fletcher and follow the underground railroad. Even though compassion might suggest that a larger number of escaping slaves is always better, there is also a pragmatic concern to consider: How can compassion toward everyone be balanced with the wisdom of avoiding unnecessary risks? Is it better for two people to escape successfully, or for three people to try to escape and fail? These questions become even more urgent after Lovey is captured, and Cora and Caesar try to remember whether or not they took the risk of telling Lovey about their plans to find Mr. ![]() Lovey’s choice to follow Caesar and Cora puts all three of them in greater danger. The threat that slaves can pose to one another within the system of slavery is also exhibited by Lovey. As the novel’s narrator notes, slavery sometimes causes slaves to bond together, but at other times it turns them against one another. The real enemy that needs to be fought against is slavery itself but, when this enemy seems unconquerable, the Randall slaves fight against one another (and against their own self-interest) because their survival instinct drives them to it. Third and most significantly, the idea of slaves fighting over three square yards of land while they work together in captivity to farm a white man’s acres of cotton is incredibly ironic. This character trait will manifest itself again in future chapters. Her resistance may cost her, as it does in this case, but she will make sure that the people who hurt her are hurt in return. Second, it shows that her character is someone willing to fight back against injustice. Her struggle to hang on to it is not only a struggle for a few more vegetables to eat each year it’s a fight to hold on to what little sense of history and collective identity she has. First, this land is the only tangible legacy left to Cora by her grandmother and mother. Lumbly, the station agent, takes them underground to an actual railroad, where he loads them into a boxcar and sends them to South Carolina.Ĭora’s struggle against Blake to keep her tiny plot of land is important for various reasons. Fletcher feeds them and then drives them to the underground railroad station in his cart, hiding them beneath a blanket. The boy later dies from his injuries, making Cora and Caesar even more wanted as fugitives because they have killed a white man.Ĭora and Caesar reach Mr. She strikes him repeatedly in the skull with a rock in order to escape. The runaway slaves are discovered by three white hog hunters, two of whom seize Lovey and drag her off. Fletcher’s house in the middle of the night and are unexpectedly joined by Cora’s young friend Lovey. Fletcher who is willing to transport them to the underground railroad. She agrees to go with Caesar, who explains that he met an abolitionist named Mr. This change is the impetus Cora needs to escape. James Randall dies of kidney failure, making Terrance the new owner of James’s half of the plantation and Cora’s new master. Cora intervenes, and she, too, is beaten. Terrance begins beating Chester with his cane. Terrance commands the slaves to dance, and a young slave named Chester accidentally bumps into Terrance, causing the master to spill a drop of wine on his sleeve. They want to hear a slave named Michael recite the Declaration of Independence, but it turns out that Michael was beaten to death. Blake himself had already been captured and killed after trying to run away.ĭuring the birthday celebration feast of a slave named Jockey, the plantation co-owners James and Terrance visit the festivities. Not long afterward, when Cora reached puberty, Blake’s cronies raped her. In retaliation, Cora destroyed the doghouse with a hatchet. A massive slave named Blake uprooted her garden and built a doghouse for his dog in the space. Once the land was Cora’s responsibility, other slaves began trying to take it from her. This land was passed to Mabel, and then, when Mabel escaped, to Cora. Within the slaves’ quarters on the Randall plantation, Ajarry had claimed for herself a tiny three-square-yard patch of land to farm. Without a mother, Cora became a misfit among the slaves and was sent to live in the Hob, a cabin for women who do not belong anywhere else, including those who are unfit to work or mentally unstable. Cora’s mother ran away when Cora was 10 or 11 years old.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |