100 books challenge - #1 The Underground Railroad
"The American Spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and civilise. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed. To lift up the lesser races. If not lift up, subjugate. And if not subjugate, exterminate. Our destiny by divine prescription - the American imperative."
This quote from Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad is the one that, for me, reveals the heart of the novel. This White American attitude is what the novel seeks to expose, not just in the American's of the 19th century, but which still resides within the White American's of today.
The Underground Railroad follows the experience of plantation slave Cora, and her journey on the Underground Railroad towards the North and her freedom. Along the way she see's much of humanity- the best and the worst of what humans have to offer. This novel is very much about the way humans connect to each other, or rather, how they don't. With the author attempting to explore what could possibly be so wrong with the human race that one person could enslave many others, based solely on the colours of their skins. In a style reminiscent of both Toni Morrison's Beloved and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Whitehead's narrative allows the reader into many different psyche's, revealing to us the thoughts and desires of slaves, freedom fighters, a slave catcher and an evangelical all of whom play a vital part in Cora's pursuit of freedom.
The majority of the novel is focused on Cora, the third person limited perspective allowing the reader to be apart from her, and yet also able to experience her inner most thoughts and feelings. Being able to, in a sense, make the journey on the Underground Railroad with Cora rather than simply being Cora was, I feel, a calculated move on the part of the author and one that I wholeheartedly agree with. I am a 21st century, White, British woman. I have no way to equate my own life experience with Cora's and being forced to try in a first person perspective would, I believe, have been too much of a leap and as such, the novel would not have been as impactful as it is. By being with Cora and still privy to her innermost self, the reader is more able to understand her fear at getting captured, the pain of her life in slavery and her tentative hopes for a better future than we ever could were we pretending to see her world from inside her.
The novel is written as a patchwork of lives, and each person's 'story' is written in subtly different idiolects, for example the narrative of the slave character's uses improper grammar and sentence structures for speech due to those character's inability to access education. Small details like this are part of what makes this novel so engaging as an example of a moment in time, because the character's are made to feel real and unique. Every person's 'story' and life experience is different from another's because every person is different, which is something that this novel shows beautifully with such tiny, but incredibly significant, writing techniques.
As I have already said, I am a White, British, 21st century woman - I am entirely not the right person to relate exactly why this novel is so important to American history and White American attitudes. However, I will say that this is one of the best novels I have ever experienced. It has stayed with me, so sharp and tragic, but always tentatively hopeful. This is a beautiful story and I hope I have convinced even 1 person to give it a go.
- The Act of Writing -
This quote from Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad is the one that, for me, reveals the heart of the novel. This White American attitude is what the novel seeks to expose, not just in the American's of the 19th century, but which still resides within the White American's of today.
The Underground Railroad follows the experience of plantation slave Cora, and her journey on the Underground Railroad towards the North and her freedom. Along the way she see's much of humanity- the best and the worst of what humans have to offer. This novel is very much about the way humans connect to each other, or rather, how they don't. With the author attempting to explore what could possibly be so wrong with the human race that one person could enslave many others, based solely on the colours of their skins. In a style reminiscent of both Toni Morrison's Beloved and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Whitehead's narrative allows the reader into many different psyche's, revealing to us the thoughts and desires of slaves, freedom fighters, a slave catcher and an evangelical all of whom play a vital part in Cora's pursuit of freedom.
The majority of the novel is focused on Cora, the third person limited perspective allowing the reader to be apart from her, and yet also able to experience her inner most thoughts and feelings. Being able to, in a sense, make the journey on the Underground Railroad with Cora rather than simply being Cora was, I feel, a calculated move on the part of the author and one that I wholeheartedly agree with. I am a 21st century, White, British woman. I have no way to equate my own life experience with Cora's and being forced to try in a first person perspective would, I believe, have been too much of a leap and as such, the novel would not have been as impactful as it is. By being with Cora and still privy to her innermost self, the reader is more able to understand her fear at getting captured, the pain of her life in slavery and her tentative hopes for a better future than we ever could were we pretending to see her world from inside her.
The novel is written as a patchwork of lives, and each person's 'story' is written in subtly different idiolects, for example the narrative of the slave character's uses improper grammar and sentence structures for speech due to those character's inability to access education. Small details like this are part of what makes this novel so engaging as an example of a moment in time, because the character's are made to feel real and unique. Every person's 'story' and life experience is different from another's because every person is different, which is something that this novel shows beautifully with such tiny, but incredibly significant, writing techniques.
As I have already said, I am a White, British, 21st century woman - I am entirely not the right person to relate exactly why this novel is so important to American history and White American attitudes. However, I will say that this is one of the best novels I have ever experienced. It has stayed with me, so sharp and tragic, but always tentatively hopeful. This is a beautiful story and I hope I have convinced even 1 person to give it a go.
- The Act of Writing -
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