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 5-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Slave Auction”
Emma feels sick on the coach ride to the auction barn and her hand hurts from Sarah squeezing it so desperately. She sees how tightly the white men, dressed finely and smiling, pack the slaves into the horse stalls. Sarah is annoyed that everyone is acting like this is a party, especially Frances. Pierce talks with another plantation owner, who congratulates him on how well he treats his slaves. Other slave buyers discuss how Pierce’s misfortune is his own fault. A buyer looks over one of the slaves, putting on gloves to look inside his mouth. Unnamed slaves talk amongst one another about how mean one owner looks versus another one. One slave, Bob, calls over one of the buyers, showing his muscles and introducing the buyer to his wife. The buyer says they’ll fit in well, although Bob’s wife, Mary, doesn’t like the way the buyer was looking at her. Bob tells her everything will be fine. The slave-seller tries to get Mrs. Henfield to buy Emma, saying that she’ll need to make it worth Pierce’s while. Emma thinks about Aunt Hagar’s feisty spirit and Jose, the boy who is sweet on her, who she’s never really spoken with and believes she’ll never get to know now that he’s sold.
The slave-seller introduces himself and expounds the virtues of Pierce’s slaves. The auction begins with a family, sold together to beget future generations of slaves. Emma tries to follow how fast the slave-seller is talking based on what Fanny taught her about numbers, but it seems to be over so quickly. The slave-seller processes quickly through the slaves, describing each slave in terms of the benefit they would afford their buyer. Emma notes that the rain is getting louder and the slave-seller’s voice is getting hoarse: “But don’t seem like nothing this day is going to stop him from selling slaves” (65).
There is a list detailing the sold slaves, including their names, their occupations, and how much they were sold for. Emma talks about how everyone’s faces look the same. She thinks that if it were her, she would try to imagine herself somewhere else. Sarah can’t really see anything and has a challenging time making out what the slave-seller is saying. The slave-seller thanks everyone and continues with the bidding, offering the strong young Jeffrey. Emma notices Jeffrey searching with desperate eyes for a girl who looks at him longingly. After a man buys Jeffrey, Jeffrey pleads with him to buy his love, Dorcas, as well. When the man hesitates, Jeffrey argues that Dorcas is a great worker. The man looks Dorcas over before agreeing, and Jeffrey thanks him profusely. But when the bidding comes, another buyer outbids Jeffrey’s new owner. The man apologizes to Jeffrey, who cries along with Dorcas. Thunder shakes the barn but does not drown out their sobbing.
Interlude 5 Summary: “Jeffrey”
A few years later, after the abolition of slavery, Jeffrey explains what happened after his separation from Dorcas. He ran away from his new enslaver every chance he got. His new enslaver says that Jeffrey “love[s] Dorcas so much he would’ve thought [Jeffrey] was a white man” (75). Jeffrey explains that after the Civil War, slaves moved around trying to find the loved ones they had been torn away from. Jeffrey travels to Mississippi to find Dorcas with a baby, and Jeffrey is shocked that Dorcas didn’t wait for him. Dorcas apologizes but says she has a husband and can’t go with him, although she admits she doesn’t love her husband like she loves Jeffrey. Dorcas goes back into her house and her husband arrives; not knowing the situation, her husband invites Jeffrey in but Jeffrey leaves, feeling hopeless and contemplating suicide as he sits by a river.
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Auctioning of Slaves Continues”
There is a list of more sold slaves, depicting their names, their occupations, and how much they were sold for. Some slaves who are sick or have disabilities withdraw from the auction. Emma sees that Mrs. Henfield has bought Joe, who she thinks looks nice. Will comes into the barn, having avoided the auction he had to watch the day prior. He just wants to go home to his family, although the rain is letting up. He sees the slave-seller point out Emma to Mrs. Henfield and then talk to Pierce. Emma witnesses the same, thinking: “Ain't nothing over here for them to see” (83). She watches Pierce slowly agree to sell her, although she does not understand what is going on and notices that Pierce refuses to meet her eyes. Frances summons Sarah to them, and Sarah wants to go home, trying to get Emma to come along, but Frances says that Emma isn’t coming with them. Emma demands to know what is going on, but Frances ignores her. Sarah tries to reassure Emma that Pierce wouldn’t sell her. Emma reassures Sarah that everything will be fine. Pierce is furious and hits Sarah for not coming to him fast enough. Sarah starts screaming and runs towards Emma, but Pierce intercepts her. Will starts screaming at Pierce, and Pierce tells him to take Sarah to the coach, arguing that they are not brothers. Pierce threatens to sell him as well. Will says he should have let Pierce drown but takes Sarah outside.
Mrs. Henfield asks Emma about her childcare abilities, telling her that they are going to Kentucky. Emma simply answers yes. Emma thinks about the painful cocktail of emotions she feels, starting with the surprise of her sale and how her mother will never see her again. Emma thinks about how Mistress Henfield doesn’t expect her to have feelings, wondering how Mistress Henfield would react in Emma’s situation. Emma calls out to Joe in the line of Peirce’s slaves. They discuss Emma’s sale, which surprises Joe but also makes him glad they’ll be together. Emma and Joe both scoff at Pierce giving his sold slaves a silver dollar, which they argue means nothing. Joe talks about how the two of them are family now. Emma thinks he’s right, and she and Joe both refuse to take the silver dollar from Pierce. She steps out into the sunshine. Emma says goodbye to Sarah and Will, who tells Joe to take care of Emma. Emma’s dress is soaked in tears from her father and Sarah, and she tells Sarah that she has a “good heart” like her mother. Emma waves to Sarah and her father as she and Joe leave.
Interlude 6 Summary: “Sampson”
Sampson drives the coach with Joe sitting up next to him. He sees how scared Joe is and tries to comfort him with words of Mistress Henfield’s grace and benevolence towards her slaves. Joe is quiet for a long time before telling Sampson he doesn’t want to hear it. Sampson thinks Mistress Henfield would be better off without Joe, believing that slavery is the best thing to happen to Black people because they don’t have to worry about anything.
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Kitchen”
Mattie cooks dinner in the Butler’s house as Sarah sleeps at the table. Mattie remembers how Sarah came screaming to tell her that Pierce had sold Emma. Pierce refuses to look at Mattie. Will is crying and apologizes to Mattie for not being able to save Emma: “Sarah was in there between us like she wanted as much of the hugging as she could get” (99). Pierce threatens to spank Sarah again, and she scurries behind Mattie and Will for protection. Mattie stares at Pierce until he walks away, then tells Sarah to go after her father. Sarah argues that she hates him, which Mattie chastises her for. Sarah follows Mattie into the kitchen where Mattie makes her some tea. Sarah cries herself to sleep.
Mattie feels an impossible mixture of sadness and anger. She begs the Lord to have mercy on Emma. Pierce attempts to apologize to Mattie, but Mattie says she doesn’t know him anymore, telling him to burn in hell. Pierce goes back to his dinner guests. Mattie curses him and spits in the food. Will resents the fact that all the white people know what happened but expect him to bow and grin like a good slave. Will worries that if he doesn’t behave, Pierce will sell him, too, wanting to pretend that Will’s grief isn’t real. Will wants revenge, so he plans to talk to Uncle Isaac, an African slave, to put a death spell on Pierce. Pierce tries to get Sarah to go to bed, but she screams that she hates him. Pierce reprimands her. Sarah argues that she’s sleeping with the slaves tonight, and Pierce blames Mattie and Will for Sarah’s idea. Pierce threatens to beat Sarah, and Sarah retorts that her mother was right about how mean Pierce is. Pierce angrily relents, saying that Sarah is her mother’s child.
Interlude 7 Summary: “Sarah as a Young Woman”
Sarah remembers feeling proud at her father’s angry retort, just like she was proud when Emma told her she had a “good heart” (109) like her mother. Sarah remembers thinking about how she could show she had a good heart by being Mattie and Will’s surrogate daughter: “Looking back on it now, I understand that I needed them that night more than they needed me” (110). She remembers sleeping with them one night before missing her bed and then having Mattie sleep with her like Emma used to. Sarah remembers how Pierce thought she’d forget once they went to Philadelphia, but Sarah felt something worse than hatred for her father, even on his death bed. Sarah remembers being unable to tell him she loved him when he asked because she lost all respect for him. She remembers how he died without her answering.
Chapters 5-7 Analysis
In Chapters 5-7, the audience witnesses the reality of the slave auction mostly through the eyes of Emma. The reader knows about Emma’s impending sale before Emma does, and the author works to build up this tragedy through the use of dramatic irony. Lester also breaks the narrative tension of the main tragedy, that is, the sale of Emma, with the mini tragedy of Jeffrey and Dorcas, to display how futile any action is on the part of the slaves. Jeffrey does everything in his power to make sure that he and Dorcas stay together, but the capitalism associated with slavery thwarts him. However, Jeffrey’s suffering does not end with slavery, and the author argues that it, in fact, intensifies. Once Jeffrey is free, he finds that Dorcas has not waited for him like he thought she would.
As witnessed in the interaction between Mary and Bob, the audience understands the precarious positionality of slave women, even those who were married. There is no doubt that the institution of marriage granted some semblance of protection for Dorcas against sexual violence, although as Mary points out, this protection can easily be violated. Therefore, the audience is able to understand why both Jeffrey and Dorcas chose their respective paths that could only again cross in tragedy: Jeffrey placing all of his hope on someday being reunited with Dorcas and Dorcas attempting to make the best of an unfortunate situation. Even with the abolition of slavery, Black persons still must deal with the repercussions of its institutions. Effectively, the author is arguing that the abolition of slavery, while granting some measure of personal freedom, did nothing to ameliorate the generations of trauma, displacement, and personal alienation necessitated by the institution itself.
Within the auction itself, the author, using irony, demonstrates the sheer inhumanity within the process of selling and displacing another human being. Lester details the white dresses and white gloves of the white slave owners, whose hands metaphorically have on them the blood of slaves. The white slave owners treat the slaves inhumanely, as evidenced when they inspect the slaves’ mouths like horses and shove them into cramped stalls like animals. There is also irony in the author’s suggestion that the white people commend Pierce on how well he treats his slaves, even as he breaks apart lovers and families. The interaction between the two slave-buyers is ironic because they argue that they do not want to capitalize on another man’s misfortune, which in and of itself is the basic tenet of slavery. However, the emphasis on the body also indicates a critique of capitalism itself, which necessitates the widespread oppression of one group to the benefit of a much smaller group. In this context, racism has a greater influence than capitalism, although the two can be seen as being inextricably linked to and reinforcing each other.
