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Metaphors
Definition of Mood
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect of a piece of writing... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes... read full definition
Chapter 2: Georgia
Explanation and Analysis:
With its use of figurative language, narrative voice, and plot, the The Underground Railroad is meditative and cynical. The journey through which Cora finally stumbles to freedom—five states, hundreds of miles, thousands of dead Black bodies—is devastating in itself, but the novel moves beyond sentimental simplicity. During stretches of narration, the work frequently steps back to give space for its characters’ own thoughts. Many of them offer blunt appraisals, as when Cora reflects on Jockey’s “celebrations”:
Once you got that old, you might as well be ninety-eight or a hundred and eight. Nothing left for the world to show you but the latest incarnations of cruelty.
The novel focuses on the heartbreaking injustices of slavery but also elevates Black voices that are wearied by the repetition of all the devastating injustices. The Underground Railroad complements its sense of sorrow with jaded knowledge, outrage with numbed resignation. The novel’s moments of free indirect discourse create a reading experience that communicates the disillusionment among its Black subjects.
This clear-eyed appraisal doesn’t prevent the novel from approaching slavery in a thematic sense. Elsewhere, the narrator subtly interjects to provide the reader with historical background or foretell the end of the system—details unavailable and unknowable to the characters themselves. At points, this detached, omniscient perspective allows the work to deliver more abstract critiques. Granted a measure of distance from the past, the novel also comments on slavery in poetic and incisive fashion:
At the auction block they tallied the souls purchased at each auction, and on the plantations the overseers preserved the names of workers in rows of tight cursive. Every name an asset, breathing capital, profit made flesh.
Both these emotions—reflection and weariness—overlay the novel without concealing the devastating sense of tragedy that lies at the plot’s center. Cora survives, but only after escaping Ridgeway twice and squeaking past countless brushes with death. Caesar gets torn apart by a mob, Mabel poisoned by a water snake, Royal gunned down in a burning farmhouse. Cora—the work’s lone Black survivor—reaches freedom, but only after having endured the sorrow of all the other lives lost along the way. The novel and narrator do not need to embellish horror or heartbreak. Instead they simply show, through the twists and turns of Cora’s torturous journey, the inhumanities of the institution.
Related Themes:
Chapter 8: Tennessee
Explanation and Analysis:
With its use of figurative language, narrative voice, and plot, the The Underground Railroad is meditative and cynical. The journey through which Cora finally stumbles to freedom—five states, hundreds of miles, thousands of dead Black bodies—is devastating in itself, but the novel moves beyond sentimental simplicity. During stretches of narration, the work frequently steps back to give space for its characters’ own thoughts. Many of them offer blunt appraisals, as when Cora reflects on Jockey’s “celebrations”:
Once you got that old, you might as well be ninety-eight or a hundred and eight. Nothing left for the world to show you but the latest incarnations of cruelty.
The novel focuses on the heartbreaking injustices of slavery but also elevates Black voices that are wearied by the repetition of all the devastating injustices. The Underground Railroad complements its sense of sorrow with jaded knowledge, outrage with numbed resignation. The novel’s moments of free indirect discourse create a reading experience that communicates the disillusionment among its Black subjects.
This clear-eyed appraisal doesn’t prevent the novel from approaching slavery in a thematic sense. Elsewhere, the narrator subtly interjects to provide the reader with historical background or foretell the end of the system—details unavailable and unknowable to the characters themselves. At points, this detached, omniscient perspective allows the work to deliver more abstract critiques. Granted a measure of distance from the past, the novel also comments on slavery in poetic and incisive fashion:
At the auction block they tallied the souls purchased at each auction, and on the plantations the overseers preserved the names of workers in rows of tight cursive. Every name an asset, breathing capital, profit made flesh.
Both these emotions—reflection and weariness—overlay the novel without concealing the devastating sense of tragedy that lies at the plot’s center. Cora survives, but only after escaping Ridgeway twice and squeaking past countless brushes with death. Caesar gets torn apart by a mob, Mabel poisoned by a water snake, Royal gunned down in a burning farmhouse. Cora—the work’s lone Black survivor—reaches freedom, but only after having endured the sorrow of all the other lives lost along the way. The novel and narrator do not need to embellish horror or heartbreak. Instead they simply show, through the twists and turns of Cora’s torturous journey, the inhumanities of the institution.
Related Themes:
