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Ajarry
Mabel is Ajarry’s daughter and Cora’s mother. When she is 14, she has a brief romance with Grayson, through which she becomes pregnant with Cora. However, after Grayson dies of a fever before Cora is born, Mabel never mentions his name again. Mabel spends her entire life on Randall before one day running away, leaving Cora behind. Cora resents her mother for what she perceives as this act of selfishness, and is furious that Mabel didn’t say goodbye. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that Mabel did in fact say her own kind of goodbye to Cora, and also that not long after fleeing the plantation, she decided to come back for Cora. However, she only made it a few miles before dying from a snake bite.
Mabel Quotes in The Underground Railroad
The The Underground Railroad quotes below are all either spoken by Mabel or refer to Mabel. 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 4: South Carolina
Quotes
Once Mabel ran, Cora thought of her as little as possible. After landing in South Carolina, she realized that she had banished her mother not from sadness but from rage. She hated her. Having tasted freedom's bounty, it was incomprehensible to Cora that Mabel had abandoned her to that hell. A child. Her company would have made the escape more difficult, but Cora hadn't been a baby. If she could pick cotton, she could run. She would have died in that place, after untold brutalities, if Caesar had not come along. In the train, in the deathless tunnel, she had finally asked him why he brought her with him. Caesar said, "Because I knew you could do it."
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Underground Railroad LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mabel Quotes in The Underground Railroad
The The Underground Railroad quotes below are all either spoken by Mabel or refer to Mabel. 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 4: South Carolina
Quotes
Once Mabel ran, Cora thought of her as little as possible. After landing in South Carolina, she realized that she had banished her mother not from sadness but from rage. She hated her. Having tasted freedom's bounty, it was incomprehensible to Cora that Mabel had abandoned her to that hell. A child. Her company would have made the escape more difficult, but Cora hadn't been a baby. If she could pick cotton, she could run. She would have died in that place, after untold brutalities, if Caesar had not come along. In the train, in the deathless tunnel, she had finally asked him why he brought her with him. Caesar said, "Because I knew you could do it."
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
