Comment on style / language

The novel’s prose adopts a generally somber tone so as to reflect the gravity of Wash’s personal circumstances, as well as the gravity of racial oppression in general. This solemnity and terror is established early in the novel, especially when the prose describes the horrors inflicted by Erasmus and his overseers on the plantation slaves. For example, Wash states in narration, “…the maimings began…[a slave] tried to run away, and to make an example of him, the master had an overseer burn him alive as we watched” (6). The vivid descriptions of physical abuse help to set the stakes for the novel, demonstrating how the institution of slavery was inherently deadly towards those it oppressed.