Genre
Historical fiction
Setting and Context
Set in the 19th century in America
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narrative from Annis’ perspective
Tone and Mood
The tone is truthful and the mood is disheartening.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is Annis, and the antagonist is her father, who sells her into slavery.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is between Annis and slave owners, who treat the enslaved people like animals.
Climax
The climax comes when Annis falls in love with another enslaved woman in Louisiana.
Foreshadowing
Annis' escape from slavery is foreshadowed by her intimacy with her lover, who tells her nothing is impossible in this world.
Understatement
The suffering of enslaved people is downplayed when the narrator says they work diligently at the farms.
Allusions
The story alludes to Betty Wood’s book on Slavery in Colonial America from 1679-1776.
Imagery
The narrator's description of the fateful day she was sold depicts a sense of sight. The narrator says, "On that night, my mother woke me and led me out to the Carolina woods, deep, deep into the murmuring trees, black with the sun's leaving."
Paradox
The primary paradox is that the father expected to protect his daughter, sells her into slavery.
Parallelism
There is a parallelism between Annis’s statement about escaping slavery and her friend’s suggestion of fleeing Louisiana.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
n/a
