Aminata Setting

The Woman in Black (TWIB) is a story about isolated people in an isolated place. Not least TWIB before she died. Janet Humfrye was isolated by her plight as a mother of an illegitimate child, which was frowned upon by society in the early 20th century when the story is set. Even the town’s people of Crithin Gifford were isolated on the marshes and almost described as though they lived in another dimension, another part of the world set apart from the rest of society. The sense of isolation runs like a thread right through the whole book. Hill does this by creating vivid pictures in the reader’s mind. She uses detailed descriptions or imagery with frequent use of metaphor, simili and personification techniques. She also uses short and

Setting is the specific or general environment where a story or event takes place. This novel is set in the 1960s in a town divided by the East and West sides. The division in the city separates characters based on social class, creating unequal treatment between gangs as characters of the West Side believe in superiority over the East. The small rivalry between classes leads to much larger problems, forming events, such as the Socs jumping Ponyboy and Johnny, that lead to the main plot of the book.

As another character being a father-like figure to Aminata, Mamed is able to connect Aminata with the white world unlike any other character had before. Being both half white and half black himself, Mamed finds a connection to Aminata when she says a Muslim prayer, relating it to one his mother sang for him as a kid. This forms a connection between the two, and through this connection Aminata learns the basics of reading and writing English: “I was not planning to teach reading to anyone. But I have seen the brightness of your eyes.” (220). Through what Mamed sees in Aminata, he decides to provide her with the most important knowledge for survival, and without it many of her opportunities would have been missed. Similarly to Mamed, Sanu is another friend of Aminata’s who provides her with important experiences. As a fellow captive on the ship to the new world, Sanu is another strong female character who shows Aminata what it takes to demonstrate strength and courage. During the earlier parts of the novel, Aminata helped Sanu deliver her baby, to which Sanu said moments before giving birth, “I am ready now, child. If we live, I will name her Aminata. After you.” (70). The calmness and kindness Sanu shows is a sign of courage, and influences Aminata in a positive way before crossing the sea to America. It is through this influence, as well as the lessons from both Georgia and Mamed, that help prepare Aminata for the new world, giving her an advantage to her chances of

A lack of self-awareness tended the narrator’s life to seem frustrating and compelling to the reader. This lack often led him to offer generalizations about ““colored” people” without seeing them as human beings. He would often forget his own “colored” roots when doing so. He vacillated between intelligence and naivete, weak and strong will, identification with other African-Americans and a complete disavowal of them. He had a very difficult time making a decision for his life without hesitating and wondering if it would be the right one.

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

In the beginning chapters of the book, we get a glimpse of the typical home and community of an African American during segregation. Many Africans Americans were too adjusted to the way of living, that they felt

Captivity is a strong theme running throughout American Romantic literature. This novel is a wilderness romance with strong undercurrents of captivity and escape. Not long after arriving in the Congo, their minds are already focused on escape. The jungle is a paradise, but a dark, gothic one where evil lies in wait - in the form of venomous snakes, flesh eating ants, and the poisonwood tree. Just as surely as the slaves in Uncle Tom's Cabin were searching for escape from captivity, so too are these women and children, and their escape is equally fraught with danger. The entire time that they live in the village, they imagine that a return to America will release them from their heartache, but this does not prove to be the case for any of them. Africa takes the life of one sister, holds on to

In the beginning of the novel, Aminata loses both of her parents as they tried to defend themselves from the slave traders that were attempting to take them away. They were killed and Aminata is left to fend for herself. "Each and every time, they were starved, flattened and sucked out of my mind, and replaced with visions of my mother motionless in the woods and my father, lip quivering while his chest erupted" (p.34). The vision of her parents' death is forever imprinted in the mind of the young Aminata and scars her for life. Love was a sign of hope for Aminata and she found this with Chekura, her husband. Unfortunately, Aminata and Chekura were separated when traveling to Nova Scotia. After a significant period of time, Aminata is told that her husband's ship has crashed and sunk, no survivors were found. "Chekura. My husband. After such a long journey. Gone, on the very vessel I should have taken" (p.415). After such tragedy, Aminata loses faith in love for she has lost the love of her life and the father to her children. She could have been with him if only she boarded that ship. Lastly, the most devastating loss is the loss of both her children. Her eldest child Mamadu and her youngest May were both taken from her. Mamadu was taken from her and sold when he was still a baby and May was taken by a family she trusted

Aminata is displaying her resistance towards Appleby by standing strong and proud of who she is. Not a girl slave, but a strong girl, born and raised in the village of Bayo.

The Book of Negroes portrays a very vivid sense of realism throughout the entire story. As one follows Aminata through the excruciatingly painful journey she calls life, her pain, suffering and fears can be felt and seen by the reader. The hardships felt by the African people are heart wrenching. They lost everything that was ever home to them and taken to a world that treated them unfairly. These poor people suffered at the hands of the toubab, “white man.” Aminata herself watched her mother die in front of her, “But another man intercepted her, raised high a big, thick club and brought it swinging down against the back of her head. Mama dropped. I saw her blood in the moonlight, angry and dark spilling fast.” (pg. 26) Losing family was not the only devastating occurrences they endured. They were shackled together, stripped of their clothing, rarely fed and at times they were caged like wild animals and branded. Many did not make the trip to Sullivans Island. There was so much death due to the poor conditions they were forced to live in. Once they were bought by the slave owners the treatment of them became much worse. They

Catching babies played a huge role to her survival. Catching babies made Aminata useful to her white owners

Throughout the entire story, Aminata faces many hardships. It seems as if each time life is finally beginning to look less miserable, Aminata is blindsided by heartbreaking situations. And although Aminata is continuously tasked with facing these situations, she still manages to flourish and never lose hope. In the story, Aminata is kidnapped from her home village of Bayo in West Africa and witnesses the death of both her parents. She is sold into the slave trade along with her husband Cheruka. She is raped and publicly humiliated by her first owner Mr. Appleby. And both of her children ( Her son Mamadu and her daughter May) are taken from her. Her husband Cheruka drowned at sea due to his ship being swept away to

She is at the point of her life where she cannot bear to see a loved one killed or even taken away and this is because she lives a life where she has lost her parents, husband and children. Another fear of Aminata is being ‘yoked’ and chained by slave traders and having to walk countless miles through various weather conditions. The reason being, she has experience of being chained from a young age when slave traders invaded her home village “Bayo” and abducted her. This experience has tormented and scarred her for life and this is evident when she suddenly disagrees and refuses to the idea of going back to Bance Island, which is where slave traders travel

Being that the novel is based on African Americans of the 1890s, the characters of Their

1. Explain the setting of the novel. What influence, if any, does it have on the story?