Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves.
Telling about his childhood, the narrator touches a theme of parenthood and family relations, or better to say absence of any. He himself could not tell how old he was, or anything about his parents who knew nothing about themselves.
A silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers.
Pondering upon the issue of slavery, the narrator tells about his own observations. While still a child, he often heard the overseers demand the slaves not to be silent; they made them sing or make any other noise. Then it looked strange for the narrator and when he grew older he understood the reason. Silence was dangerous as during it a slave might think, and thinking is intolerable among slaves. The slaveowners came up with every possible way to keep both hands and mind of the slave occupied that he had neither strength nor inner power to let thoughts get into his mind.
Food, to the indolent lounger, is poison, not sustenance.
The narrator dwells in detail on the conditions his owner with his family lived. There was everything one could wish for, their lives consisted of abundance of food and luxury. But it is not where happiness is to be looked for, as poor and almost always hungry slaves slept better then “indolent lounger” – as the narrator calls the members of the owner’s family. To his considerations food is maintenance for life, but not the reason to live.
The balsam was not more healing to the wound in my head, than her kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit
When being yet a boy of eight or nine years old, the narrator was offended by another slave boy Ike. Ike had made a cross sign on his forehead with a sharp piece of cinder, fused with iron. The young narrator did not deserve it, but nobody showed any sympathy but Miis Lucretia who pitied the poor boy time after time. She treated his wound, but it was her kindness that helped him to come through such an experience and not to turn to evil.
