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Ridgeway is the son a blacksmith, Ridgeway Sr., who grows up to become a notorious slave catcher. He has a fearsome reputation as a slave catcher, but is also known for his strange personality. He is a fervent believer in “manifest destiny,” the idea that white people have a right (and even a duty) to colonize America and enslave black people in order to construct the country. Ridgway is more honest about the reality of America than many other white characters in the novel, refusing to uphold myths about the country and its history. He is obsessed by his failure to capture Mabel and Cora, and he ends up being killed by Cora in Indiana in a final physical battle that resembles a dance.
Arnold Ridgeway Quotes in The Underground Railroad
The The Underground Railroad quotes below are all either spoken by Arnold Ridgeway or refer to Arnold Ridgeway. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3: Ridgeway
Quotes
The cotton gin meant bigger cotton yields and the iron tools to harvest it, iron horseshoes for the horses tugging the wagons with iron rims and parts that took it to market. More slaves and the iron to hold them. The crop birthed communities, requiring nails and braces for houses, the tools to build the houses, roads to connect them, and more iron to keep it all running. Let his father keep his disdain and his spirit, too. The two men were parts of the same system, serving a nation rising to its destiny.
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Chapter 12: The North
Quotes
On Randall, on Valentine, Cora never joined the dancing circles. She shrank from the spinning bodies, afraid of another person so close, so uncontrolled. Men had put a fear in her, those years ago. Tonight, she told herself. Tonight I will hold him close, as if in a slow dance. As if it were just the two of them in the lonesome world, bound to each other until the end of the song.
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Arnold Ridgeway Quotes in The Underground Railroad
The The Underground Railroad quotes below are all either spoken by Arnold Ridgeway or refer to Arnold Ridgeway. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3: Ridgeway
Quotes
The cotton gin meant bigger cotton yields and the iron tools to harvest it, iron horseshoes for the horses tugging the wagons with iron rims and parts that took it to market. More slaves and the iron to hold them. The crop birthed communities, requiring nails and braces for houses, the tools to build the houses, roads to connect them, and more iron to keep it all running. Let his father keep his disdain and his spirit, too. The two men were parts of the same system, serving a nation rising to its destiny.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12: The North
Quotes
On Randall, on Valentine, Cora never joined the dancing circles. She shrank from the spinning bodies, afraid of another person so close, so uncontrolled. Men had put a fear in her, those years ago. Tonight, she told herself. Tonight I will hold him close, as if in a slow dance. As if it were just the two of them in the lonesome world, bound to each other until the end of the song.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
