The Metaphorical Floodgates Unleash
So rich in densely packed metaphorical language is this work of literature that practically every page features at least one memorable image which either leaps off the page or burrow into the mind. In a testament to the power of that authorship, from just the first page or two can be extricate the kind of sentence structure that might well be a highlight of an entire book by a less writer:
“The soul of my mother, though shrouded in a sable covering, broke through the gloom of night, and shone celestial in her sparkling eyes!—Sprung from a race of native kings and heroes, with folded hands and tearful eyes, she saw herself torn from all the endearing ties of affinity, and relative intercourse!”
The British
The British men who engaged in slave trafficking and slaveholding had—as usual—no compunction about intermingling the liquids of sexuality and lust, but the so-called mixed-blood result of such union was declared illegitimate beyond all normal boundaries of illegitimacy The narrator, shall one say, gets it:
“The illegitimate offspring of his slave could never be considered in the light of equality by the English planters. Such is their prejudice, such is the wretched state of degradation to which my unhappy fellow-creatures are sunk in the western hemisphere.”
God’s Brotherhood of Man
Keeping in mind that so far with these examples, the reader will have yet have cause to turn or wipe the page twice, the narrator takings into account the western civilized view of the god which they forced the newly enslaved to worship. Those stolen from their homeland and transformed into property who were viewed as
“…an inferior race, but little removed from the brutes, because the Almighty Maker of all-created beings has tinged our skins with jet instead of ivory…yet I am not ashamed to acknowledge by affinity with the swarthiest negro that was ever brought from Guinea’s coast!—All, all are brethren, children of one common Parent!”
Defying Conventions
The metaphorical richness remains as robust and abundant later in the novel as on that opening page or two. Some of it even surprises just on the basis of conventional expectations. Consider the narrator’s after-the-fact accounting of her emotional at living without love even as the promise of romance suddenly appears on the horizon:
“A stranger to love, envy, or ambition, my days were crowned with joy, and my nights with undisturbed repose. –Delightful hours! Why so soon did you spread your air pinions, and leave me to weep for that peace which can return no more.”
No Happily Ever After
It does not take long to realize that perhaps what the reader already suspects will come to fruition. The marriage is not a happy one and the narrator is exceedingly self-analytical in her rationalization of its failure:
“To a heart less tender, perhaps less fond, than mine, this change might have been imperceptible; but my love was of that delicate nature, as to startle even at the shadow of unkindness.”
