The Legacy of Slavery
The novel is an epic tale of the black experience in America and so, it goes without saying, slavery plays a significant role. Just how significant is framed as one of the simplest, bare-bones distillations of imagery in the entire bool. Just three short sentences that encapsulates the entire legacy of slavery and so, by consequence, the entire history of the country:
“This is the tragedy of slavery. These are the grains of power. There isn’t a true innocence for children whose parents are shackled.”
A Monster Awakens
There is another legacy at work in the novel that is, it goes without saying, inextricably linked to the legacy of slavery. A monster is created on a farm from the beautiful innocence of a young child abused by his father. Just as the linear progression of physical bondage is passed through generations and expressed in one way or another, so is the linear progression of child abuse. From father to child until that child is grown and then from adult to child once more. The moment that the transformation from victim to monster takes place is appropriately dominated by bestial imagery:
“He was returning from the outhouse and came upon the little girl. She was throwing corn to the chickens and calling to them. An animal overtook Samuel. He grabbed the little girl, placed his hand over her mouth, and ran with her back to the outhouse. Afterward, he did not try to dry her eyes or keep her from weeping. No one would believe a Negro girl’s accusations of a white man. And even if she was believed, no one would care. The next morning at breakfast, Samuel’s happiness was overwhelming.”
Uncle Root’s Pecan Tree
Uncle Root is fond of taking people to a barren patch of land vegetated by little more than overgrown grass and a pecan tree. The pecan tree is dominant image as it is the only foundation capable of supporting the weight of a man who has been lynched. Uncle Root manages to just barely avoid testing that hypothesis of the tree’s capacity and so it becomes a primary symbol of the black experience both individually and collectively. It is the final description of the tree, however, that fully invests the imagery with a mountain of symbolic meaning:
“You see here? See these cuts? These showed up a few days after the commotion at the store. Somebody tried to chop this tree down. We never found out who did it, and it never bore fruit again.”
Bloodlines
There are a lot of names to keep track of and many of those names are repetitive, belonging to different characters. It may seem like careless writing, but in fact it is just the opposite. It is imagery created by the confusion of who’s who and what’s what where does one family end and another begin. Self-identity is an overarching thematic cohesive to the black experience in America especially as it stands in opposition to the demand of those enjoy the cream of white privilege to treated special precisely as a result of their bloodlines:
“Because they took care of the Young Friends, and thus, were involved in Samuel’s perversion—despite being compelled to do so—both the cook and gardener were friendless. The Quarters-folks avoided Venie and Pompey, and so, the two were grateful for the attention of Aggie. Along with other Quarters-children, Pompey had been raised by Aggie, before he had gone to the fields. He was devoted to her as much as to his own mother. As for Venie, the bond the two women shared would not have been likely, had they not been lonely. Aggie was twenty-five years older than Venie, but she was equally friendless.”
