Underground Railroad: The Railroad To The North As A Metaphor For Freedom Anonymous 11th Grade

In the Underground Railroad, author Colson Whitehead uses the metaphorical instrument of the railroad to the North to portray the deep, systematic roots of the struggles that many still face today. While Cora’s story shows us how far we have come on the topic of racial equality, it doesn’t fail to remind us about how far we still have left to go. Written from the present, Whitehead pulls metaphysical analogies from varying time periods to connect Cora’s story to our present day. During the era of slavery, there were no locomotives or train tracks; this was Whitehead’s creative vehicle meant to pull the reader towards a deeper understanding of Cora’s struggles. It served as a medium between the past and the present.

Cora’s first interaction with the Underground Railroad was during her escape from the Randall plantation with Caesar. Cora approached the tunnel with great curiosity, but with just as much apprehension: “The stairs led onto a small platform. The black mouths of the gigantic tunnel opened at either end. It must have been twenty feet tall, walls lined with dark and light colored stones in an alternating pattern (P68).” The ‘dark mouths of the tunnel’ in both directions was a pure representation of the uncertainty Cora...