His Hand Sought Hers (Visual Imagery)
While discussing the sentencing of the Ohio man who risked his freedom to free a slave, Charity accuses Dick of being too lazy to do anything heroic himself. He asks if she is ever going to love him, and tries to make a physical connection: "His hand sought hers, but she drew it back beyond his reach." In this example of visual imagery, Chesnutt illustrates how Charity holds power over Dick by rejecting his weak attempt to get close to her. He will have to do something of significance if he wants her to love him.
Looking Anxiously Toward the Inn (Visual Imagery)
Upon reaching the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, Dick reminds Grandison that he is legally a free man in the country before telling Grandison to wait while he has lunch at an inn. From a window seat, Dick looks back at where he left the man, hoping that he will have finally fled. However, Chesnutt writes that "Grandison remained faithfully at his post, awaiting his master’s return. He had seated himself on a broad flat stone, and, turning his eyes away from the grand and awe-inspiring spectacle that lay close at hand, was looking anxiously toward the inn where his master sat cursing his ill-timed fidelity." In this example of visual imagery, Chesnutt immerses the reader in Dick's point of view as he laments the fact that Grandison has, once again, shown his stubborn loyalty.
Group of Familiar Dark Faces (Visual Imagery)
At the end of the story, the colonel and fellow slaveholders track Grandison and his family as they flee to the North. The colonel can't catch up with them, however, and he has a last glimpse of his most loyal slave on the shore of Lake Erie. Chesnutt writes: "On the stern of a small steamboat which was receding rapidly from the wharf, with her nose pointing toward Canada, there stood a group of familiar dark faces, and the look they cast backward was not one of longing for the fleshpots of Egypt." In another example of visual imagery, Chesnutt shows how Grandison's family manages to escape on a boat to Canada before the colonel can reach them. Only minutes late, the colonel must watch as the familiar faces leave him behind, powerless to do anything to stop them from attaining freedom.
