What are the motifs in The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau?

Racial Inequality is a recurring idea in this story. For the time line found in The Keepers of the House, racial equality did not exist. William Howland's earliest ancestors utilized slave labor to work the fields of their plantation. Another character, John Tolliver, descended from a family who had bred and sold slaves as a sole means of profit. When William and Margaret lived together, their home town was against interracial relationships and their marriage was prohibited by law. Although the abolition movement was gaining momentum in northern states, it had not yet trickled down to the south.