Essay Questions

Jameson proves himself to be a diligent and good lawyer, and a good man to boot. Why are his arguments unsuccessful in gaining an acquittal for Celia?

Jameson is a good man. He is a respected lawyer who, unlike most of his fellow Missourians, has a great deal of sympathy for slaves, and for Celia's plight in particular. His historical records show him to have been far more on the side of the abolitionist movement than the pro-slave movement, and his arguments on Celia's behalf show that he considers her to be, first and foremost, a human being, and not a possession of her rapist.

His arguments should have been effective; he rightly contended that as the victim of rape, Celia was within her right to defend herself by any means necessary, according to Missouri law that enables a woman to defend her honor. However, his arguments were not considered valid, because Celia was a slave, and therefore considered a possession of her master, and not a person. As a possession, she had no rights at all under the law, despite the fact that her master was the same person who had been raping her over many years, including during her teens.

What do we learn about the way in which women were viewed at the time from the book?

We learn from the book that women were considered, for the most part, to be the architects of their own rape, even though there was a law in place that allowed them to defend themselves by any means necessary. Although at first it seems as though Celia was blamed for seducing Newsom because she was a slave, it becomes apparent that this is not the case; her boyfriend, George, who loved her deeply, also believed that she was carrying on a relationship with Newsom on purpose, and threatened never to speak to her again if she did not call it off. As a slave, he would have known that Celia had no rights as a person, yet he still blamed her for the sex between her master and herself.