The Underground Railroad Essay Outline

The book The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead closely follows the life of Cora, a plantation slave in Georgia in the time of mass enslavement of African Americans. While in the south Cora describes the harsh life on the plantation, the controlling slave owners and gruesome punishments the slaves had to endure, often leading to death. One-night Cora executes a grand escape to the north in search for a brighter future discovering “The Underground Railroad.” Whitehead leverages ideas of human commodity, intense imagery, illusioned reality and symbolism to expose slavery, times of brutal hardships and the fight for freedom making The Underground Railroad an astonishing read. Throughout the book the degradation of human value underlines

Without knowing how to read or write along with lifelong oppression, the history of slaves began to fade and erase through the years. This theme of legitimacy and shifted reality continues through the book drawing attention to the battel between myth and reality. While escorting Cora to the next safe house Martin (a middleman) shows her the Freedom Trail. This trail is an endless row of lynched slaves in the rural of North Carolina. The infinite nature of the trail makes it a mythical element as it has no beginning or end. Cora notes the never-ending cycle of death associated with the trail, “bodies consumed by carrion eaters were constantly replaced, but the heading always advanced.” Although fictional the trail helps paint a picture of scale, making the number of deaths seem uncountable and infinite. Cora also notices the complete silent of the rural area, “The country road was quiet”. The atmospheric silence may very well signify the lost voices of the slaves, their forgotten past and the unknowns of history. Another fictional element in the book, the underground railroad plays a major role in questioning legitimacy of history. By turning a metaphor into a real-world phenomenon Whitehead molds the boundaries of reality into fantasy adding an element of imagination to the book. This in turn introduces realms of possibilities and impossibilities both for slaves and

From the beginning Cora’s garden plays a major role in defining her character and underlining her family’s heritage. Constantly attending to the garden, it reminds her of life, not a life in bondage but a life of flourishment and possibility. Cora takes personal ownership over the garden in a way reclaiming ownership over herself. One-day Blake builds a dog house on the garden, this helps reveal Cora’s defensive stance against anything that comes her way as, “Her first blow brought down the roof of the doghouse.” Symbolically Cora is defending her own life and the little freedom she has left. Another point of symbolism comes in the form of dancing. Dance connected slaves back to traditional roots and in that moment, they felt free and disconnected from harsh reality. However, slave owners forced slaves to dance for entertainment,” Terrance demands that the slaves dance” setting a reminder for the control whites possessed. To Cora dancing possesses sinister associations connected with enslavement and control. Likewise, dancing parallels with sex as the dancing reminds Cora of the time she got raped, “She shrank from the spinning bodies, afraid of another person so close.” Drawing further connections, it becomes apparent that sex, like dancing, becomes associated with violence, powerlessness and