Death

The novel presents the reader with various kinds of deaths in order to show that, just as life needs both mind and spirit to thrive, death too can occur either in the body or the mind. Like physical deaths, which are described throughout this novel, especially after the beginning of the slave trade, deaths of the mind are tragic and devastating as well. However, the novel gives its readers reason to hope by showing that, unlike physical death, the effects of mental death can be reversed.

Throughout the novel, death is associated with the white predators and destroyers. In fact, death is described as though it is their way of life, as shown by the first chapter, which refers constantly to “the disease of death, the white road” (12). The image of a road is used to describe the values and lifestyles that the white predators and...