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Dramatic Irony
Chapter 6: North Carolina
Explanation and Analysis—Servant vs. Slave:
The novel’s foil of Cora and Fiona sets up a comparative study between slavery and servitude. The story introduces readers to Martin and Ethel’s house servant in its North Carolina chapter, just after Cora has escaped to the state. Cora never glimpses Fiona during her time in the attic, but she hears of the servant’s curses and grudging acts of service. When the night riders haul Cora and her hosts out, she discovers that Fiona had been responsible for turning them in:
She was so young, Cora thought. Her face was a round and freckled apple, but there was hardness in her eyes. It was difficult to believe the grunts and cusses she’d heard over the months had come out of that little mouth, but the eyes were proof enough.
The scene at the town square is the first time Cora meets Fiona, whose cruelty belies the innocence of her “freckled apple” face. In an immediate sense, the servant’s youthfulness makes her betrayal that much more surprising.
The twist is even more unexpected, though, because Fiona herself is trapped in a social position that is hardly any higher than Cora’s. This confrontation between enslaved and servant invites a broader comparison between two different forms of labor that have each influenced American history. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, slavery often flourished alongside servitude. Some of the earliest settlements and plantations turned to indentured servants, who were forced to work because of outstanding debts and also received harsh punishments at the whim of their masters. An influx of European immigrants would continue supplying some regions with a cheap labor force throughout later centuries. As Martin explains, this resemblance between servitude and slavery inspires the town’s plan to employ white laborers for picking cotton.
But servitude differs crucially from slavery in that its members have the chance of attaining freedom. Fiona has the chance to rise through the ranks in society someday—Cora does not. Servitude is not enslavement. If anything, history suggests that it may have even contributed to the institution of slavery: the rising costs of indentured servants partly motivated plantation owners to purchase slaves in the 17th century.
Cora notes this antagonism, observing that the white underclass will eventually become “allies of the southern system that nurtured them.” Once freed from the lower class, servants like Fiona will simply subscribe to the status quo and perpetuate the injustices that they had formerly suffered. In many ways, Martin and Ethel’s maid is already performing this: she turns in her employers hoping to win ransom for betrayal. Rather than empathizing, she has used her power merely to inflict suffering upon others. Instead of uplifting, Fiona oppresses. This servant-slave pairing exposes the divisions within America’s lower classes and critiques a society that encourages its members to buy into its own backstabbing logic.
Related Themes:
