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Chapter 7: Hard Work Fills the Iron Kettle 1781–1789
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Amos Fortune, Free Man, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Slavery
Dignity and Racism
Hard Work and Good Character
Providence and Faith
Summary
Analysis
Amos has always longed to own a piece of land in Jaffrey, and the pivotal visit to Lois Burdoo and her family happens just as he’s about to make an offer on a beautiful 25-acre plot. He discusses the Burdoos with Violet one afternoon, barely able to restrain tears as he considers how little support and protection they have. Violet asks what he plans to do for such a “no-account family,” and he tells her he wants to give them a “start in life” with a house and new clothes. There’s enough money in the iron kettle to do this, but it will mean delaying the purchase of land while the family saves enough money a second time. Amos trusts that he has enough strength to do this.
Amos’s enslavers long ago re-granted him the freedom he was born with. And while he cherishes and treasures that freedom—and wants to make sure that other people can experience it, too—until he has property to call his own, his freedom remains insecure. Amos feels and demonstrates an affinity with Moses. The Bible describes Moses’s role in freeing the Jewish people from enslavement. But Amos, unlike Moses, can only redeem a few people at a time, and ensuring the security of a woman and her five children is a great commitment.
Themes
Violet feels conflicted—especially when Amos goes inside and discovers the iron kettle gone—but she resolves to stick with her plan. However, she quickly confesses to removing the kettle when Amos beings to question Celyndia. Dispatching the girl on an errand because they have things to say that “won’t sound pretty in a child’s ears,” Amos presses Violet to tell him where she hid the money. Violet swears to go to her grave before allowing Amos to give it to a “no-account woman” like Lois. He accuses her of stealing his money, and she angrily asks him how many times he’s willing to defer his own good life. The town has tried to help Lois, but she hasn’t “made herself any better,” and Violet believes that charity is wasted on a woman who refuses to accept the responsibility to care for herself and her family.
The contrasting lives of the Burdoos and the Fortunes point toward the idea that hard work achieves reward, while poverty and suffering reveal moral failures. In Violet’s mind—and in the book’s opinion—Lois doesn’t deserve Amos’s help because she passively accepts the town’s support without doing anything to improve her situation. In contrast, Amos has spent his enslavement educating himself and learning a valuable trade. Violet becomes the mouthpiece for the book’s belief that people who want the aid of God or society should also help themselves.
Themes
Amos reiterates his faith in his ability to make enough money to bring both his plans—helping Lois and buying land—to fruition. But Violet worries that the years he has left to enjoy the fruits of his labor are dwindling. She even suggests that maybe “[God] let [Amos] buy [her]” so that she could make sure he treats himself well. Try as he might, Amos can’t get Violet to budge. But he also can’t get the thought of hopeless Lois and her hungry children out of his mind. Violet and Amos don’t speak to each other during the midday meal, puzzling Celyndia. In the afternoon, Violet prays for strength to hold on to her secret, while Amos asks God for a sign of what he should do. And that evening, he takes bread and water up onto the mountain to wait for his sign.
Up to this point in the book, Amos has demonstrated a willingness to defer his own plans and dreams. First, he waited on the goodness of his enslavers, and now he waits on God’s blessing. But Violet—who readers should remember decided to help God make the wilderness a flower garden by bringing her own seedlings to Jaffrey—insists that Amos take more ownership for his own fate. And that Lois take more responsibility for hers, rather than passively waiting for the town or upstanding people like Amos to help her out. When Amos climbs the mountain to seek God’s wisdom, he once again aligns himself with the Biblical figure of Moses, who received the ten commandments on the top of Mt. Sinai.
Themes
Amos climbs until the light fails, reaching the summit of Monadnock by moonlight. It takes him a long time to regain his breath and composure. As he looks down on the valley below, he also looks back over his life. He has a good trade, plenty of strength left to work, his freedom, and the freedom of his wife and child to show for himself. But he has no land to leave for them when he dies. Still, Lois’s predicament moves him. Amos feels that he’s worked hard for his money and that Violet has no right to tell him how to use it. But he recognizes that her freedom to choose now came from Amos’s goodness to her.
Amos has become accustomed to exercising his own freedom (within the limits of his society, of course) but struggles to control his emotions when Violet elects to exercise her own freedom and stakes a claim to the couple’s shared financial resources. Still, to his credit, he takes his devotion to the ideal of freedom seriously and considers Violet’s side of the issue. Perhaps more importantly, he understands how his freedom means little to his family without the stability a piece of land will provide.
Themes
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Praying once more for guidance, Amos finds shelter for the night in a small cave. When a sudden roaring as loud as the sea wakes him from a deep sleep, he interprets the sound as God’s voice, even though he understands it’s a sudden wind phenomenon that often happens on the mountain. As the sun rises, he prays for the understanding to interpret the message. Then he sits and watches as people wake up and set about their work in the valley below, thinking about how important it is to own land—the ultimate source of wealth in the new nation of America. Suddenly, Amos knows what he should do, and he thanks God for his wisdom.
In the Bible, Moses ascends Mt. Sinai to seek God’s guidance for the Jewish people to whom he’s given the Ten Commandments. In this book, Amos ascends Monadnock Mountain to seek God’s guidance about which family he should establish in the promised land of stability—his own or Lois Burdoo’s. Importantly, he realizes that his freedom—and that of his family—means little if he doesn’t own the land necessary to ensure that they never descend into the kind of poverty and want of the Burdoos
Themes
When Amos arrives home, Violet sits at her loom, weaving. He tells her he’s decided to spend his savings on the plot of land, and she reveals that she has already returned the iron kettle with their money to its usual place. She tells him that she realized it was wrong to keep him from his money, and he answers that, in truth, it belongs to them both. That afternoon, Amos and Violet sign the deed for the land on which they will build their own home and where Violet will finally plant the treasured flowers she carried from Woburn. And so, by his 80th year, Amos finally realizes his long-treasured dream of becoming a landowner.
Both kind, conscientious, and careful, Lois and Amos complement each other and work together well as a couple. Their reestablished domestic harmony confirms the rightness of their choice to prioritize their own financial wellbeing over charity toward the Burdoos. This doesn’t mean that they abandon the needy family, but that they stop—in Violet’s words—adding fuel to the fire of Lois’s neediness. As Violet plants her flower and Amos reaches the age of 80, the couple finally stakes their claim for a slice of the promised land of freedom and plenty to call their own.
Themes
