Clotel - The President's Daughter: Post #4

Taking notice of the true noteworthiness of the brief poems before each of the chapters, I have taken understanding that they each weave off into a deeper meaning of the previous chapter. Every quote installs the sense that slavery is an ongoing, heated issue that is so much more serious than what the whites take it for, which is really the entire purpose of why Brown wrote this novel. I think he uses these poems to evoke his readers and to prompt them to understand that throughout all of the aspects of his storyline, the most significant component to trace is his voice in opposition to slavery and the misdemeanors of slave-holders. His acknowledgement of the distinctive social classes is made clear through his utilization of continuous wordplay such as "It ain't no use for 'em to try that, for if they do, we puts 'em through by daylight," (118) and "'What's de matter wid you? Where is you sick?'" (139). This really puts forth the belief that although Brown is an African-American man, he is literate and understands that the majority of the people of his race are not as educated as he and other whites are, but he in fact is a representation that contradicts the whites' point of view during that time: Blacks were inferior to whites in every possible way.

Brown makes a beautiful transition to Chapter VIII, "The Seperation," which is comprised of a very compelling but convoluted chapter. I foreshadowed from before that Clotel and Horatio would separate, but Brown makes his readers so sympathetic to both of these characters in that he depicts Horatio, the husband, using very emotional descriptions of him, "'Oh God, Clotel, do not say that;'" and covering his face with his hands, he wept like a child," (121). He truly shifts from him repetitively emphasizing how detrimental the institution of slavery is to emotionally arousing his readers with the traumatic breakup of Clotel and Horatio which is an element of Romantic writing.