Essay Questions

Kossula is an epitome of a difficult life. Support this statement with illustrations from Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon.

Kossula’s life among his people and the tribe become ruined when they are attacked by people from the neighbouring village, Dahomey. This is the beginning of what is to be a very difficult life among the people alien to him, the people he works for as a slave. When the slaves become liberated, Kossula uses the savings he had stacked up to buy a plot of land on which he settles and starts a family—with the utmost difficulty. Kossula loses his kids to diseases and is hit by a train which renders him useless as a worker. While he works at the local church, one of his son’s is shot and killed by a law official for no reason, and another son disappears without a trace. The climax if Kossula’s difficult life is the death of his wife as it renders him lonely and desolate.

Show how Hurston brings out the theme of slavery in her novel, Barracoon.

Kossula’s life is broken and changed following an invasion and war that happens between his tribe and a neighbouring tribe of Dahomey. He is separated from his land and the kind of life that he was used to living in while there. Kossula is strolled for two days to Dahomey and then later taken to Ouidah. He is then sold to an American by the name of Bill Foster, a slave owner. After seventy days of travelling through the Atlantic sea, the voyage reaches and lands off the shores at Alabama. Here, Kossula is then again sold as a slave to Jim Meaher. Kossula is then forced to work for five and a half years as a slave to the American until he is liberated together with the other slaves. In this way, the writer presents the theme of slavery.

Tragedy is well explored in this novel. Show how this is brought out.

Tragedy begins earlier on in Kossula’s life when his tribe is attacked by the Dahomey tribespeople and most of the villagers are taken as slaves. After a life of slavery and Kossula has settled down in marriage, another tragedy strikes when his son is shot and murdered by a law enforcement officer for no reason. Later, the death of his wife follows, marking the height of tragedy in his life.