73 pages • 2 hours read
William Wells BrownClotel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1853A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Biracial Slaves
In Mr. Peck’s kitchen, the slaves discuss how a beautiful slave named Dorcas Simpson is engaged to a slave on a neighboring plantation. Though he works in the fields, he is ultimately seen as an acceptable choice for Dorcas because “[h]e’s nearly white” (107). Sam, described by Brown as “one of the blackest men living” (107), states that the man’s whiteness is an “exchuse for her” (107) and that he disapproves of “dis malgemation of blacks and mulattoes” (107). Brown writes that even among the slaves, “[t]here is […] a great amount of prejudice against colour” (105). Sam, to compensate for the darkness of his skin, insists his mother was white and that his hair’s ability to grow long is evidence “that he was part an Anglo-Saxon” (107).
Biracial slaves are seen as untrustworthy by slaves and slave owners alike. Brown notes that slaveholders’ wives often see a biracial slave as “a rival” for their husbands’ attention (121). For this reason, Clotel is forced to cut off her long hair so she will look more like “any of the full-blooded Negroes in the dwelling” (121). Darker-skinned slaves also reject her, saying “[s]he tinks she white, when she come here did that long har of hers” (121). In Chapter 17, “Retaliation,” the cook, Dinah, upon seeing Mary fainting in the sun, tells Mrs. Green that “[d]ees white niggers always think dey sen good as white folks” (129). Finally, George’s light skin means he “seldom ever receives fair treatment at the hands of his fellow slaves” (189); however, it also makes him appear more of a threat to white people, who “usually regard such slaves as persons who, if not often flogged, and otherwise ill treated, to remind them of their condition, would soon ‘forget’ that they were slaves, and ‘think themselves as good as white folks’” (189). Biracial slaves are therefore not white enough to be accepted by white people and not dark-skinned enough to be accepted by their fellow slaves. Even when accepted by white men—white men marry both Clotel and—they are ultimately cast out by society: Clotel is abandoned by Horatio, and Althesa’s children, despite their being indistinguishable from white people, are sold at the New Orleans market.
Interestingly, this fluidity of identity is not unique to biracial slaves. Even darker-skinned slaves shift between identities in order to survive. Carlton is stunned when Sam, who when with the other slaves boldly celebrates the death of Mr. Peck, once back in the drawing room affects a demeanor “as solemn and as dignified as if he had never sung a song or laughed in his life” (127). William, pretending to be the slave of Clotel, or “Mr. Johnson,” speaks in vernacular among the slaves on the steamboat, though in private with Clotel he uses formal English. Clotel herself, in order to escape, transforms her identity, using her light skin to pass as a white man. In these examples, Brown alludes not only to the slaves’ need to adapt but also to the self-effacement slaves suffer as they hide their true selves in a system that oppresses them.
Brown arguably writes of light-skinned, biracial heroines in order to elicit more sympathy from white 19th-century readers. Just as Henry, having believed “that the slaves of the Southern states were Negroes” (92), is “unprepared to behold with composure a beautiful young white girl of fifteen in the degraded position of a chattel slave” (92), white readers may be moved by visions of the enslavement of those who look white. Clotel asks readers to consider who is seen as human and illustrates the arbitrariness of who is enslaved and who is free.
Family Separation
Brown writes in his narrative that “[n]othing was more grievous to the sensitive feelings of William, than seeing the separation of families by the slavetrader” (11). Throughout Clotel, he describes “husbands taken from their wives, and mothers from their children, without the least appearance of feeling on the part of those who separated them” (11). Brown witnesses a mother who is distraught after the trader Mr. Walker is annoyed by the crying of a slave’s baby and gives the baby to their hostess; he also tells of a blind child who is sold to an innkeeper because his mother is unable to carry him. Clotel is sold away from her mother and sister; when Currer is sold, she begs Mr. Peck to buy Althesa, too, and upon his refusal Althesa nearly “wept herself to death” (57). Althesa’s daughters, Ellen and Jane, are sold away from each other, never to see each other again. Mr. Walker heads for New Orleans early the morning after the slave sale, for he seeks to avoid “any of those scenes so common where slaves are separated from their relatives and friends” (52).
Slaves do not have to be sold away from each other in order to suffer family separation. Mr. Peck flogs his slave Harry for spending too much time in town with his wife. Even after Georgiana frees the slaves, many families are separated: because the liberated slaves “must be sent out of the state” (134), Georgiana, upon her death, provides for them to go to Ohio. However, “some had wives and some husbands on other plantations in the neighbourhood, and would rather remain with them” (158). As “the laws of the state forbade any emancipated Negroes remaining, under penalty of again being sold into slavery” (158), these families are separated despite being free.
Georgiana asserts that Christians should be moved by “the wail of the mother as she surrenders her only child to the grasp of the ruthless kidnapper” (96). Brown similarly asks his readers to be moved to action by the suffering resulting from family separation. In describing Clotel’s separation from her daughter Mary, Brown writes that “the degradation and harsh treatment” (122) of slavery itself “was nothing compared with the grief she underwent at being separated from her dear child” (122). Upon escaping slavery, Clotel returns to Virginia to find her, sacrificing her freedom and her life in order to reunite with her. The tragedy of her dying before she can even hear news of her is the climax of Brown’s argument.
Sexual Exploitation
Brown depicts how female slaves are sexually exploited, forced into sexual relationships with their white masters through duress, coercion, and objectification. Early in his narrative, he informs readers that his mother was a slave and his father a relative of her master. Clotel and Althesa are daughters of Currer, a slave, and Thomas Jefferson, to whom she was hired out as a housekeeper. George, too, is the son of “an American statesman” (188). Brown condemns slave owners who have children with their slaves only to discard them, stating that “[i]f there is one thing more revolting in the trade of human flesh than another, it is the selling of one’s own blood relations” (12).
Currer, Clotel, and Althesa’s daughters Ellen and Jane are all victims of sexual exploitation by their masters. Mr. Cooper, Clotel’s final master, seeks “to win her favour by flattery and presents” (141); however, he knows “that whatever he gave her he could take back again” (141). Moreover, though he “[a]s yet” treats her “with respectful gentleness” (141), the careful inclusion of the words “as yet” suggests he will not hesitate to force her if she continues to refuse his advances. Mr. Cooper’s evident kindness is belied by his willingness to exercise his power. Teenagers Ellen and Jane are purchased for the express purpose of becoming sexual partners for their masters. Though she is allegedly purchased to be a housekeeper, Ellen “soon knew for what purpose she had been bought” (175). Jane’s purchaser is “an unprincipled profligate” (175), and Jane soon becomes aware “of her impending doom” (175). Even Horatio’s purchase of Clotel, though having the appearances of an act of love, is shrouded in self-interest, for after living with her for a time as his wife, he discards her when he is tempted by “variety in love” (66).
In describing saying goodbye to his sister, Brown writes that it is “infinitely better […] for a sister to ‘go into the silent land’ with her honour untarnished, but with bright hopes, than for her to be sold to sensual slaveholders” (13). After being separated from his family, he is pained by the thought of his sister “in the hands of the slave-driver, compelled to submit to his cruelty, or, what was unutterably worse, his lust” (18). Female slaves endure unique suffering at the hands of slave owners who use their privilege and power to abuse them sexually.
Poetry
Brown often quotes poetry in order to further his arguments. He also begins several chapters with lines of poetry. Many of the quotations are from the poems of well renowned poets such Lord Byron; of these, some are also abolitionists, such as John Greenleaf Whittier. By including famous poetry that encapsulates his points, Brown establishes that his points are universal and worthy of being written on.
Several characters recite poetry. Mr. Peck shares with Carlton a poem he wrote for Carlton’s sister. Titled “My Little Nig,” the poem’s narrator calls his young slave “the blackest thing alive” (103) and describes how the slave “squabbles with the pigs” (103). In contrast, Georgiana, in hearing Carlton’s reports of the religious ignorance of Jones’s slaves, recites a poem condemning Christians for “[s]end[ing] Bibles to the heathen; / On every distant shore” (113) while “keep[ing] it from the millions / Down-trodden at our door” (113). Later in the same chapter, a slave named Jack, when asked to praise Mr. Peck in front of Mr. Peck’s northern friends, recites a poem stating that “[t]he little bee make[s] the honey” (115) while “the white folks gets the money” (115). Poetry is often used to offer a concise, poignant summation. It is worth noting that both Mr. Peck’s poem and Jack’s poem end their respective chapters. By leaving readers with these bold lines of poetry, Brown forces them to pause and ponder the significance of the characters’ words.
