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.
Themes
The Vulnerability of Black People and Black Slaves
Throughout the novel, the author highlights the commodity of the Black body, which is rendered vulnerable through its social positionality associated with slavery. The institutionalization of slavery requires the Black body to exist at the discretion of white people. The physical location of the Black body and even its continued existence is subjected to whims of white slave owners. Where a Black body is permitted or required to exist is also up to white discretion, which has devastating effects on the abilities of slaves to form personal relationships. The author constructs the Black body as threatened, constantly vulnerable to emotional and physical violence. Much of the safety that the Black body can obtain is dependent upon knowing what white people are thinking, demonstrating the fragile social positionality in which slaves cannot always foresee physical and emotional violence. Although all slaves within this novel can be subjected to such trauma, the author is careful to point out that the female Black body exists in a state that is even more vulnerable than the Black male body, as female slaves are subject to sexual violence in a way that male slaves are not.
The author suggests that the precarious nature of the Black body stems from its commodification through the institutionalization of slavery. Slavery renders Black bodies as products, bought and sold at the discretion of their white possessors, eliminating any agency slaves have over their own bodies. At the beginning of the novel, Will remarks that the wagons taking slaves to auction are “carrying slaves to be sold like bales of cotton” (6). Will demonstrates the commodification of the Black body; slaves have no agency within this context but are relocated as inanimate objects. Of course, the harshness of such a statement implies Will’s criticism of this event as his use of simile indicates that he does not consider slaves to be inanimate products. Rather, he understands the trauma that is associated with this commodification of one’s body and attempts to demonstrate just how cruel and inhumane slavery really is.
Similarly, when Will attempts to explain the slave auction to his daughter, anger is inherent in his words: “[A]ll the other white folks would come over and pat the one on the back and he’d grin and smile like he’d just bought himself a fine racehorse” (9). Will does not have to explain to his daughter—or to the audience for that matter—that slaves are not racehorses to be bought and sold, and that the glee of the white slave owners makes the dislocation of the Black body all the more traumatic. By comparing the slaves to racehorses within the white perspective, Will examines the inhumanity of white slave owners while simultaneously humanizing the slaves. The vulnerability of Black people and their bodies stem from the inhumanity of white slave owners. Nowhere is this more apparent than the overt racism of the slave-seller:
Auctioning slaves is like auctioning anything else—cotton, cattle, sorghum molasses, or sugar-cane. You have to make your buyers believes they’re getting the very best merchandise there is. It doesn’t have to be the best […] If the buyer is convinced he’s getting the best, he’ll gladly pay more (22).
This excerpt demonstrates the complicity with which capitalism allows for the perpetuation of slavery, rendering the vulnerable social positionality of the Black body as necessary to the continuation of American economy. The nonchalance with which the slave-seller reflects upon the commodification of Black bodies indicates the inextricability of slavery from the pre-Civil War economic system. The author indicates that American democracy was dependent and built upon the institutionalization of slavery, which requires and constructs the precarious nature of the Black body. This fragile social positionality then descends through generations, as white people view continued slave families as subsequent products. Lester demonstrates how escape from slavery and even birth into freedom does not mitigate Black people’s vulnerability; rather, slavery exists as a constant threat to the safety of Black bodies through its mere existence as a social institution. The author then sets the stage for future implications of the consequences of slavery, including the Black guilt, as evident in the character of Joe.
The Significance of Location in the United States Prior to the 13th Amendment
Physical location is central to the novel, especially as it relates to slavery and Black people’s freedom. Black vulnerability correlates to the arbitrariness with which a person was free or enslaved, based entirely upon where the person was born. The arbitrary nature of the Mason-Dixon line, which delineated free from slave states, was particularly relevant on border states such as Kentucky, where the Henfield plantation was. When thinking of escape, Joe explains the arbitrary nature of slavery as delineated by geography, specifically the Ohio River: “On this side of the river there are slaves. But on the other side there ain’t no slaves” (116). In border states before the Civil War, freedom from slavery seemed as tangible as crossing to the other side of the river. Once Emma and Joe cross the river successfully, they note how different life seems as determined simply by a change in location. While this often appeared to be the case, Black people’s freedom could be revoked as long as the individual stayed within the United States. Therefore, yet another border separated Emma and Joe from the safety of continued freedom: the US-Canadian border.
Lester also uses location as a narrative mechanism throughout the novel, especially as each chapter indicates where such events take place akin to screenplay format. Conversations that form the basis for interpersonal relationships are more likely to take place inside, within the perceived safety of a kitchen, for example. The kitchen is a significant location, as a domestic haven for the enslaved characters. At the beginning of the novel, Will, Mattie, and Emma all take comfort in the perceived protection offered by the domestic sphere. There is some indication that because these slaves are welcomed into the Butler house, their futures are safe. However, this notion of protection is a fallacy as even within the house, the white people plot how to sell Emma.
Any perceived notion of physical proximity to whiteness as being indicative of personal safety is eliminated through the sale of Emma, who is the closest, both in terms of physical and emotional proximity, to the white Butler family. This false sense of safety granted to slaves permitted inside the plantation owners’ houses is also witnessed in the character of Sampson, who believes that he is relatively safe, now that he no longer resides in Alabama. However, no slave is ever truly safe from dislocation and violence at the hands of white Americans. As such, Emma and Joe must flee to Canada, leaving America to truly gain their freedom.
Slavery as an Inhumane Practice Against Nature
As a slave narrative, this novel also demonstrates the inhumanity associated with slavery through its assertion that slavery goes against the laws of Nature. The natal alienation associated with slavery allows for the dislocation of families and the severing of familial bonds, actions which Lester casts as being as unnatural as they are cruel. When Will, Mattie, and Emma talk about the slave auction, “they exchange looks that say they know why Nature is making her presence felt so strongly” (10). The torrential downpour that occurs during the slave auction reflects Nature’s displeasure. Throughout the novel, rain is a symbol of divine tears, suggesting that the Judeo-Christian god sees the plight of the slaves and himself weeps for their struggles. This divine grief suggests that Nature is inherently tied to morality, implying that the institutionalization of slavery goes against the very laws of Nature. This also suggests that racism is, in and of itself, unnatural, as it allows for the emotional and physical violence of slavery. Capitalism, and subsequently slavery, necessitates the commodification of the Black body, reiterating the unnatural tendencies of human greed and fallibility. Throughout the narrative, the symbol of rain continually reinforces the idea that Nature is sympathetic to Emma’s plight.
