Assignment Overview

This assignment asks you to craft an argumentative essay in response to your selected essay topic question examining the course text The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. In conjunction with the FIQWS topic course themes, your task is to critically examine the text, draw conclusions about the work from a specific point of view, while creating a cohesive, well-supported argument to persuade your audience that your thesis and claims are valid and insightful.

My Essay 

Chidera Obi-Eyisi

FIQWS 10115 HA21

Professor Poe

Researched Critical Analysis

21 December 2019

Violation in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad

The first time you rode on a roller coaster you probably felt a rush of fear as you dropped from the highest point. Gradually, this fear diminishes, however, the memory of this experience never goes away. This feeling is not limited to roller coasters. Each time we experience something new, it is normal to feel scared. Going through an unusual event alone is especially jarring. Slowly, our fear diminishes but we never forget the initial trauma. Colson Whitehead shares the turmoil enslaved African Americans experienced and witnessed throughout their lives in his book, The Underground Railroad. Torn apart from their heritage and families in Africa, enslaved African Americans suffered on the Randall plantation in Georgia, a place they would call “home.” From working long hours doing tedious field work such as picking cotton and clearing land to endure harsh treatment such as bullwhips from the Randall brothers, the enslaved lost every sense of humanity they owned. Within this famous piece of literature, there are evident themes of liberation, family, community, brutality, violation, and bondage. Through the main character Cora, Whitehead demonstrates how experiencing violence and abuse can have a lasting effect on one’s state of mind. He proves how the violation Cora witnesses on the plantation and on the run can result in severe psychological trauma for the rest of her life.

Growing up on Randall plantation alone after her mother fled, Cora had to fend for herself. Her placement in the Hob, “where they banished the wretched,” and being labeled a “stray” made it no easier because already Hob women were not adequately catered to (28). However, Cora adjusted to her new life and had become well-established. She had her own small plot of land where she planted and harvested her own crops such as cabbage. She rarely had issues with anyone until Blake, a large, strong, and intimidating enslaved man arrived and decided Cora’s plot of land was the “most appropriate spot for his dog’s home” (31). No sooner had Blake made his intentions known than Cora’s land became ruined. Whitehead specifically calls this incident a contravention as he writes, “Cora woke one morning to the violation…there she saw it- the remains of what would have been her first cabbages” (32). According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “violate” means failure to show proper respect for— In this scenario, Blake had no respect for Cora or her land. By choosing to destroy a land where people feed on, Blake had no reverence for his fellow enslaved people or what the land meant to them. Cora eventually destroyed the doghouse Blake built with a hatchet. No later had this occurred than Cora’s second experience with the violation.

Cora was becoming a woman. News had spread like wildfire that she had become of age and in no time, people like Edward started making comments about Cora’s body. Edward who was the most wicked of Blake’s gang “bragged of how Cora flapped her dress at him while she made lascivious suggestions” (36) which was of course false. People whispered atrocious things to each other about Cora and no one but Cora knew the truth about herself. These lies allowed members of the plantation to feel it was useful to keep Cora “outside the circle of respectability” (36). Soon, it became known that Cora’s womanhood had come into flower” which means she had hit the peak of puberty. After this news spread, Edward, Pot and two other enslaved men gang-raped her. In this scenario, the word “violate” means to do harm to the person or especially the chastity of, in other words, rape. Whitehead writes that they “half dragged her behind the smokehouse” and no one intervened even if they had seen what happened (36). By describing how she was dragged and mentioning that Blake might have counseled his companions against revenge when he told her “it will cost you,” it is clear that Cora was forcefully used to satisfy the sexual desires of these men against her own will. Cora would later repress the memory of these events until her visit to the doctor in South Carolina.

While in South Carolina, she visits a doctor for the first time as a requirement based on the rules governing her new place of abode. As the doctor examines her privates with his tools, she is forced to remember an event that was once repressed. She even indicates that the exam was “painful” and made her feel “ashamed.” When Cora mentions that the doctor’s cold attitude as he examined her privates couldn’t ease her discomfort, she is saying to the doctor, this was just another routine check that he had to go through for every patient. Cora answered his questions about the initial sexual assault and at that moment, she is forced to relive the experience. The “shame” she feels about her body is more so a question of why had she allowed herself to be assaulted by Edward and his gang?

When enslaved people run away, there is always the fear of being captured and what would happen when they are caught. For Cora, this was not the case because even though she was scared, she knew she would give herself a pat on the back for at least doing something her grandmother never did. While on the run with Lovey and Caesar, the trio encounter four white men who are slave hunters. While two of the men immediately capture Lovey, Caesar, and Cora each fight off their assailant. According to an article by the Atlantic, when runaways were “cornered, they often resisted, returning blow for blow, and sometimes they prevailed” (Runaway slaves: rebels on the plantation). This resistance is evident when Cora faces her attacker. She mentions that once the slender boy laid hands on her person, her blood quickened. She recounts being “brought back to the night behind the smokehouse when Edward and Pot and the rest brutalized her” (94). This recollection of memory indicates that the initial brutalization she faced still lives with her and shows that she will remain traumatized by this event.

In conclusion, throughout Colson Whitehead’s book, Cora is constantly on the run and is unable to forget the brutality she faced back in Georgia. Her experiences with men feeling like they own rights to her body leave her distressed while she tries to move on with her life. Life events such as the rape, the assault while on the run and constantly having to fight for her life are what makes Cora who she is. Though she might never be able to repress these memories forever, her decision to fend for herself and achieve freedom is most important to her. Whitehead uses various themes in The Underground Railroad to highlight the horrible experiences of the enslaved and through Cora’s character, one is able to see how much the enslaved were dehumanized and pushed beyond their limits as humans.

 

Works Cited

“Runaway slaves: rebels on the plantation.” The Atlantic, Nov. 1999, pp. 116-18,120. Gale OneFile: Contemporary Women’s Issues, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A30082412/CWI?u=cuny_ccny&sid=CWI&xid=a7acee2. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday-Penguin Random House LLC, 2016.