whitehead colson the underground railroad

The blend of fantasy and history forces readers to ponder more carefully the shameful events that occurred-and those that are still occurring-in American race relations. Racially motivated forced sterilization, as inhumane as it seems, has also been a part of American history. The lurid violence depicted against fugitive slaves really did occur (and the Civil War did not put an end to this kind of racial violence). Several of the chapters start with historically accurate announcements of runaway slaves. At the same time, however, other parts of the story are painfully real and true to history. They are clearly metaphorical rather than literal, making Cora’s story seem a bit fantastical. None of the characters ever explain where these tunnels could have come from or how they could exist for so long without being discovered. Although what historians now call “the Underground Railroad” happened above ground and rarely involved trains, this book imagines the underground railroad as an actual network of underground tunnels with locomotives running through them. The three most important aspects of The Underground Railroad: First, The Underground Railroad is unique because of its realistic blend of historical fiction and fantasy. Major Symbols: Cora’s plot of land the underground railroads the Declaration of Independence sterilization dead bodies the Bible Gulliver’s Travels Major Thematic Topics: Freedom the roots of violence the difficulty of labeling people “good” and “evil” how the past influences the present subtle forms of racial oppression

Main Characters: Cora Caesar Arnold Ridgeway Settings (secondary): Ouidah, Benin South Carolina North Carolina Tennessee Indiana Virginia “the North” Her subsequent journey of escape and capture and escape takes her through Tennessee and Indiana and finally out West, each time riding along the mysterious underground train tracks called “the underground railroad.”

Cora continues alone to North Carolina, where she spends months hiding in an attic before being discovered and captured. Ridgeway follows Cora and Caesar to South Carolina, where he captures Caesar. However, the slave catcher Ridgeway is in pursuit, all the more determined to catch her because of his failure to catch her mother when she ran away years before. Persuaded by a fellow slave named Caesar, Cora escapes from the Georgia plantation where she was born and travels north, riding in the boxcar of a secret underground train. Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad tells the story of Cora, a runaway slave who travels from state to state on railroad cars physically under the ground of the American South.

Whitehead colson the underground railroad