Slavery

Slavery, and its lasting impact on the American way of life, play a crucial thematic role in the novel. Jane’s story begins with slavery and chronicles the transition of black people after emancipation into freedom –or what passes as freedom. Even after she gains her freedom, Jane continues to live on plantations, a reality which represents the continued subjugating physical as well as psychological condition of many blacks. This proves to be a transformed version of slavery.

Her narrative, spanning close to a century, describes the complexities of a Southern class system so pervasive that the races of people within its confines are unable, and in some cases unwilling or uninterested, to move beyond it. The backbone of this unyielding indoctrination is, in essence, a steadfast fear of change and aversion to losing power socially, culturally, and politically, coming from those who once held absolute power. It...