Freedom

The author uses her protagonist Rachel’s escape from Providence plantation to instigate her thematic explorations regarding freedom. In Chapter 1 of the novel’s opening section “Barbados, August 1834,” Rachel has just fled her lifelong captivity. Although she has successfully liberated herself from enslavement, Rachel is plagued by the question, “Was this freedom?” (8). Almost immediately upon departing Providence, Rachel realizes that freedom is not simply defined by the absence of physical restrictions or the threat of violence. Indeed, even though she has delivered her body from bondage, her mind feels “paralyzed with horror as it watch[es] things unfold beyond its control” (8). Over the course of the weeks and months that follow, Rachel's previous conception of freedom begins to mutate according to the challenges she faces while searching for her five children. She not only lives with the constant fear of recapture, but feels perpetually plagued by...