How do oral histories impact the trajectory of the narrative?Īnswer: Kunta’s introduction into a family tree of slaves who do not know their African roots changes his family. In the end of the scene, the horrible separation seems inevitable, which makes it all the worse. Especially effective is Haley’s foreshadowing: the reader does know that breaking any of the plantation’s rules will result in being sold, and they have seen it happen before.
Kizzy’s possibilities grow more and more narrow until it is clear she and her parents will never see each other again. Bell’s desperate suggestion that Master Waller sell her and Kunta falls on deaf ears. The absurdity of the situation enhances its impact: as Bell and Kunta try to argue, Kizzy would never have known the consequences of her actions, and even if she did transgress, she had been otherwise a loyal slave, as had her parents. The scene’s rapid escalation from expectation to reality mimics how Kizzy, Kunta and Bell would have felt, lending the scene its powerful and horrible realism. Only pages before does the reader learn something may be wrong when she is accused of writing a traveling pass for Noah yet, knowing Master Waller’s judiciousness, the reader might expect her to be badly whipped or a similar punishment. Which literary devices does Haley use to enhance the terror of the scene?Īnswer: Her selling is completely unexpected. The pages in which Kizzy is sold are some of the most horrifying in the book. Kunta gives up his freedom, but retains an ironclad dignity that impresses all, and continues to connect with his ancestors by transmitting small amounts of cultural heritage to Kizzy. At one time or another Kunta is asked or forced to give up all of these: freedom and dignity on the boat and as a slave, fertility versus freedom when he has the choice between having his penis or foot cut off, and connecting with his ancestors when he learns that speaking his language or showing other signs of his “African-ness” is seen as dangerous and subversive. He learned all of these while progressing through the social learning of Mandinkas as a child in Juffure. From where did his values come, and how is he able to retain them?Īnswer: Kunta’s values of manhood include freedom, dignity, fertility, and connecting to his ancestors. Describe the moral struggle of manhood that Kunta experienced in his subjugation as a slave.
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