Family, Heritage, and Home Theme Analysis

The beginning chapters of the book introduce the notion that Cora was predestined to run away because her mother, Mabel, also ran away—running away and pursuing freedom is her family “inheritance.” Although Cora hates her mother for abandoning her to a life of captivity, the penultimate chapter confirms that Mabel believed that by running away she would implant the idea of freedom in Cora’s mind. This lineage of freedom between mother and daughter is further underlined by the garden that Mabel leaves Cora to tend, which is framed as Cora’s “inheritance.” The significance of the garden lies in the fact that it is a place of refuge, hope, and vitality in the midst of the desolate hell of the plantation. Through the garden, Cora is connected to her mother and other ancestors who came before her, including those who lived free in Africa. Thus, although Cora grows up without her immediate family members, it is her connection to her family that enables her to seek a life of freedom. This idea is emphasized when Cora is described as a “stray” (an orphan, exiled from the normal life of the plantation): while there are negative consequences of being a “stray,” Cora’s lack of attachment is also what enables her to escape the clutches of captivity multiple times. By stepping “off the path of life,” Cora receives access to another path––the path of freedom.

The book also illustrates the ways in which family, kinship, and heritage are distorted by the institution of slavery. In the chapter about Ethel, the narrator notes that, as a child, Ethel was confused by the connection of enslaved people to their white captors, mistaking it for a familial relation: “Ethel thought that a slave was someone who lived in your house like family but was not family.” Although this is a naïve misunderstanding of the way slavery really operates, it also highlights the way in which enslaved people live among whites in a far more intimate and interpersonally complex way than is often assumed.

There are many scenes depicting the traumatic separation of families, particularly mothers separated from their children, which was one of the most common manifestations of the brutality of slavery. Due to this practice and the forced erasure of African identity and language, black people in America were severed from their heritage and often could not trace their familial lineage. While this was a form of violence, it also allowed for the formation of new kinds of family, including, the book suggests, a feeling of kinship and solidarity among people of African descent who are living in America. John Valentine, for example, explains that, although he is personally free, he feels obligated to help runaways because “as long as one of our family endured the torments of bondage, I was a freeman in name only.” Throughout the novel, Cora must navigate the difficult balance between maintaining this sense of kinship with others and ruthlessly looking out for her own interests, which is necessary for survival.

The book also illuminates the way in which slavery effectively makes black people homeless within the only country most of them have ever known. Cora wrestles with three different ideas of home: the plantation where she was born, the home of her ancestors in Africa, and the unknown home that she seeks through the underground railroad. Although she was born on Randall, the plantation serves as a hideous distortion of the concept of home; it is a place of endless suffering and death, and once Cora runs away, it is the place where she is least safe in the world. The irony of considering Randall “home” is conveyed when Ridgeway tells Cora after he captures her: “You don't have to be afraid, Cora. You're going home.” Cora’s ancestral home in Africa, meanwhile, provides her with a feeling of solace and hope; when she works as a “type” at the museum, “ending her day in Scenes from Darkest Africa never failed to cast her into a river of calm.” However, this home is also imperfect, because Cora has so little real access to it. She has never been to Africa, doesn’t know where in Africa her ancestors come from, and her only lived experience of the continent is through acting within an inaccurate, stereotypical scene in a museum for the benefit of white voyeurs. Finally, Cora searches for a home in the north where she can finally live a free and happy life. To some extent, Valentine’s farm serves as the closest thing to a home Cora ever experiences. However, it is not long before Cora is forced to leave the farm and go on the run again. In this sense, Cora’s “home” is not any particular place, but the act of being on the run, and, in doing so, seeking freedom.