Race

Although the novel often focuses on individual experiences and hardships, the narrative repeatedly intersects with sociopolitical dynamics of race, often as a means of exploring racial injustice/oppression that underlies much of the African-American experience. All of the novel’s central characters African-American, and the novel often highlights the race-based oppression that the characters experience. The novel establishes this pattern in the first chapter, as Hattie and August move north to escape Jim Crow Laws and other forms of racial oppression in the southern states. For example, Hattie’s father was murdered by white men because he was an African-American business owner. Hattie’s move northward is part of the large-scale phenomenon known as the Great Migration, in which many African-Americans moved north to escape injustice. Additionally, the novel also acknowledges a sense of hope for the lessening of racial oppression, as symbolized by the names...