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Martin Wells
Ethel Wells is Martin’s wife and the mother of their daughter. As a child, she was best friends with an enslaved girl, Jasmine, and dreamed of becoming a missionary. There are hints that she is a lesbian, and she finds her marriage to Martin miserable. At first she treats Cora in a rude and hostile way, however when Cora becomes sick she takes on a more caring attitude, delighted by the chance to live out her religious and romantic fantasies on the incapacitated Cora. She is stoned to death alongside her husband after Cora is discovered.
Ethel Wells (née Delany) Quotes in The Underground Railroad
The The Underground Railroad quotes below are all either spoken by Ethel Wells (née Delany) or refer to Ethel Wells (née Delany). 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:
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Chapter 7: Ethel
Quotes
Ethel thought that a slave was someone who lived in your house like family but was not family. Her father explained the origin of the negro to disabuse her of this colorful idea. Some maintained that the negro was the remnant of a race of giants who had ruled the earth in an ancient time, but Edgar Delany knew they were descendants of cursed, black Ham, who had survived the Flood by clinging to the peaks of a mountain in Africa. Ethel thought that if they were cursed, they required Christian guidance all the more.
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Chapter 8: Tennessee
Quotes
At the auction block they tallied the souls purchased at each auction, and on the plantations the overseers preserved the names of workers in rows of tight cursive. Every name an asset, breathing capital, profit made flesh. The peculiar institution made Cora into a maker of lists as well. In her inventory of loss people were not reduced to sums but multiplied by their kindnesses. People she had loved, people who had helped her. The Hob women, Lovey, Martin and Ethel, Fletcher. The ones who disappeared: Caesar and Sam and Lumbly.
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Ethel Wells (née Delany) Quotes in The Underground Railroad
The The Underground Railroad quotes below are all either spoken by Ethel Wells (née Delany) or refer to Ethel Wells (née Delany). 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 7: Ethel
Quotes
Ethel thought that a slave was someone who lived in your house like family but was not family. Her father explained the origin of the negro to disabuse her of this colorful idea. Some maintained that the negro was the remnant of a race of giants who had ruled the earth in an ancient time, but Edgar Delany knew they were descendants of cursed, black Ham, who had survived the Flood by clinging to the peaks of a mountain in Africa. Ethel thought that if they were cursed, they required Christian guidance all the more.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: Tennessee
Quotes
At the auction block they tallied the souls purchased at each auction, and on the plantations the overseers preserved the names of workers in rows of tight cursive. Every name an asset, breathing capital, profit made flesh. The peculiar institution made Cora into a maker of lists as well. In her inventory of loss people were not reduced to sums but multiplied by their kindnesses. People she had loved, people who had helped her. The Hob women, Lovey, Martin and Ethel, Fletcher. The ones who disappeared: Caesar and Sam and Lumbly.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
