89 pages • 2 hours read
Julius LesterDay of Tears
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Kitchen”
Content Warning: The Interlude 2 Summary of this section quotes and obscures the author’s use of the n-word, while the Interlude 5 Summary discusses suicide ideation.
Mattie discusses the rain, suggesting God is crying. Will discusses being scared by the thunder and lightning. Mattie explains how she has spent her whole life in the Butlers’ kitchen, suggesting that she intimately knows the family: “Master Butler’s father, Ransome […] would rise up out of his grave if he knew Master Pierce has lost so much money playing cards” (4). Will discusses how quickly Pierce sold off the slaves the day prior and how most of the slaves either were stoic or looked dead. Will talks about how he and Pierce grew up together like brothers and one time, Will even saved Pierce from drowning in a river. Will can’t believe this is happening.
Mattie and Emma discuss how Emma is readying Francis and Sarah Butler to go to the auction, which Mattie can’t believe. Emma reflects on how both girls miss their mother and how merciful the hard rain is because it hides the crying of broken families. Emma asks her father about the auction, and Will describes how families were broken apart, how the slave-seller talked very fast, and how the person who bought the slaves was always very pleased with himself. Will discusses the pain of not getting to say goodbye to his sister. It thunders. Emma worries about her cousin, who Pierce has sold away, thinking of how scared she must be. Mattie thinks about how she overheard Pierce laughing at the fact that this would be the biggest slave auction in America and how the other slaves didn’t believe her when she told them, except George and Rebecca, who ran away when they heard the news. Mattie reflects on how she’ll miss the company of the sold slaves, like the storyteller, the musician, and the preacher. Mattie and Will stand next to each other in silence looking at the rain.
Interlude 1 Summary: “Emma as an Old Woman”
Emma remembers the rain and how it allowed everyone to stand in silence: “[W]asn’t much to say that morning. Or maybe there was a lot to say, but we didn’t know the words” (15). Emma reflects on how no one could remember rain like that before or since the auction. Emma talks about how educated her children are, and how one time her daughter told her that a picture was worth a thousand words. Emma remembers arguing that no picture of slavery could convey the heartbreak they felt.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Dining Room”
Pierce reflects on how difficult it is to watch the sale of his slaves but believes that slaves don’t have the same range of emotions that white people do. He thinks about how his ex-wife unsuccessfully tried to take his daughters away from him. He is proud of Frances, who he believes will run the plantation one day, but is upset by Sarah, who seems as disapproving of her father as their mother. Pierce tells Mattie that he is taking Emma with him to the auction today to look after Sarah, which surprises Mattie, who also feels as though she is his kin because her mother was Pierce’s wet-nurse. Mattie worries about the way that the slave-seller looks at Emma. The slave-seller thinks about how this auction will cement his reputation and future as the best auctioneer, believing that he can convince Pierce to sell Emma if he finds someone willing to pay enough for her. Sarah thinks about her mother and father’s arguments concerning slavery and how she doesn’t want to go to the auction. However, she is glad she will be with Emma and not Peirce and Frances.
Frances is excited that she will get her father all to herself, thinking about her plans for the plantation when her father gives it to her. She is glad she did not have to see the sale of the slave who taught her to ride a horse and wonders how her father knows when slaves are being lazy. Pierce damns the rain for preventing him from being able to think. He talks with the slave-seller about the gambling that goes into a plantation, either gambling on cards or on the weather. Pierce laments about how hard being a slave-owner is, and the slave-seller commiserates with him, asking about his future plans but thinking about how Pierce cares too much what the slaves think of him: “Man like that don’t deserve to own slaves” (28). The slave-seller gets ready for the auction, and Peirce tells Emma to ready Sarah and Frances.
Interlude 2 Summary: “Slave-seller as an Old Man”
The slave-seller remembers the rain and his belief that the auction would make his career. He laments about the economy tanking and losing his voice after the auction, which ruined his future to the point that he couldn’t even become a plantation overseer. He remembers fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War and losing his leg to gangrene, so he had to go back to his parents’ terrible farm. He never married and can’t ride with the KKK, although he does like hearing “them talk about all the things they do to scare n******” (33). He complains that the young folks don’t care about what a great auctioneer he was because they only see the man with a disability in front of them, not the great man he believes he could have been.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Upstairs”
Emma reflects on the difference between the rain outside and the rain against the windows, which makes it difficult for her to hear Frances. Frances demands Emma brush her hair again even though Emma already brushed it this morning. Emma thinks that Frances has never shown her such disrespect: “[She] has never spoken to me like I’m a dog that she can make sit and stay on her say-so. Her mama would’ve slapped her face” (35). Sarah cries and Emma asks what’s wrong, but Frances argues she’s just a crybaby. Sarah makes Emma sit with her in the rocking chair like her mother used to, wondering if her mother left because her father made her feel lonely. Frances protests.
Interlude 3 Summary: “Frances Butler as an Old Woman”
Frances reflects on how she was trying to be strong for her father, but she needed Emma too. Frances remembers Pierce not playing cards for a while after they moved to Philadelphia. Eventually, he slipped back into his old habits and all their nice things were sold off. Frances thinks about how Sarah married a lawyer and she married an English minister. The minister shares her views on slavery, so they went back to the plantation to restore it but found the slaves difficult to manage, especially the former runaways George and Rebecca. Frances remembers her shock when finding out that Mattie and Will had taken George and Rebecca food after they escaped. Frances thinks that it was good that Emma’s parents left after the war. George and Rebecca argue for Black rights, and eventually Frances sells the plantation to be rid of them. Frances remembers how Emma made space for her next to Sarah on her lap the morning of the auction.
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Kitchen”
Mattie reflects on the destructive power of rain and tries not to cry as she looks at Emma. Emma thinks about her mother’s skin and the strength of her callused hands. Master comes to take Emma away and tells Mattie to prepare the night’s feast for other slave owners. Mattie questions if Sarah and Emma wouldn’t be better off staying home, but Pierce argues that Sarah needs to harden up. Pierce thinks about how he is likely to sell Emma, which he justifies as Sarah relying too heavily on Emma and Emma getting too familiar with the girls: “I will not have my oldest daughter turn into a copy of her mother. I won’t” (44). Emma and Mattie look at each other, and then Emma leaves.
Interlude 4 Summary: “Master”
Shortly before Pierce’s death, he reflects on the success of the auction, during which he made more than $300,000, although he never returned to the plantation. He thinks about how difficult his life has been, especially due to his estrangement with Sarah and how he disappointed Frances. He reflects on how society is worsening, incredulous at abolitionists who want to destroy what he believes to be the backbone of America: slavery. He is also surprised at the idea that anyone would go to war over the rights of slaves.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The first four chapters begin the second day of the auction, when Pierce Butler has already sold off some of his slaves. Despite this, these chapters all occur within the relative safety of the internal atmosphere, specifically within the “Master’s” house. The only points of view the readers see are from those allowed inside the Master’s house, namely, the white people as well as the few slaves that Pierce deems trustworthy: Emma and her parents, Will and Mattie. The dialogue, removed from the auction at hand, remains within the protective enclave of the domestic sphere. The auction represents an external force of evil that the domestic sphere protects the characters from; however, the readers soon find out the fallacy of this concept of protection. Although Emma and her family feel removed from the danger of separation via the auction, the readers witness the inner workings of white minds, such as the slave-seller and Pierce himself, who seem intent on getting a lucrative price for Emma.
The dialogue and character exchanges foreshadow the tragedy to come within the next few chapters as readers begin to realize that no slave—not even Emma, who serves as the Butler girls’ surrogate mother—is safe from the whims of their enslaver. Emma’s body is not hers to command as she holds no ownership over it; not even the emotional ties of Pierce to Mattie and Will can prevent this tragedy from occurring. Rather, Pierce contents himself with racist beliefs to justify his actions. The last interlude indicates that it was in no way necessary for Pierce to sell Emma; he had already repaid his debts and had plenty to live off of with his daughters. Any attempt on Peirce’s behalf to rationalize the situation rings false. Simply, it is his greed and disregard for the bodies of other people that allows him to make the decision to sell Emma. Despite his assertions, he feels no emotional connection to Emma and her family because he does not regard them as people. They are simply his property, and so Pierce may do with them and their bodies as he wishes.
The author then juxtaposes Pierce’s lack of empathy with the deep emotions of Emma and her family, who appear stoic on the outside only so that they are not in perpetual tears. The slaves must mitigate any show of emotion so as not to receive punishment. However, the author allows Nature to grieve for them. The repeated mentions of the rain liken it to human emotion, especially the emotions of Emma and her family, which foreshadow the tragedy to come. Emma, Will, and Mattie all mention the divine retribution that this rain seems to have in store, referencing the Judeo-Christian mythology of Noah’s Ark to argue that God is unhappy with the events at the auction. This rain of course irritates Peirce, who identifies it as the one thing that he cannot control. In this way, the rain symbolizes a kind of freedom for Emma’s family. The rain can grieve where they cannot, and it is the one thing in their lives that Pierce cannot control.
