In spite of the heat, Amari trembled. The buyers of slaves had arrived. She and the other women were stripped naked. Amari bit her lip, determined not to cry. But she couldn’t stop herself from screaming out as her arms were wrenched behind her back and tied. A searing pain shot up through her shoulders. A white man clamped shackles on her ankles, rubbing his hands up her legs as he did.
Before the story officially begins with Chapter One, there is a short prologue that flashes forward in time. The opening chapter will jump back to an earlier point before the misery portrayed in this prologue. It is an interesting editorial choice that calls attention to itself and almost demands of the reader some deeper critical thinking. The reader is tossed immediately right into the heart of darkness of the abomination of the slave trade and forced to confront with no context at all what one would hope would be the most shameful and humiliating moment in the life of Amari. They are then asked to turn the page and step back into time into a metaphorical garden of Eden by comparison. Chapter One is the presentation of the exact opposite of the prologue: perhaps Amari’s happiest moment of her life. The question lingers well into the book: why begin the book in this manner?
Polly really didn’t like Negroes. As far as she was concerned, they should all get shipped back to Africa or wherever it was they came from. They talked funny, they smelled bad, and they were ugly. How could the good Lord have made such creatures?
Polly is the crux at where this slave narrative really gets interesting as a story offering something perhaps a little new to many readers. Polly is a white teenage girl who has been indentured into service into the same plantation that Amari will be sold into as a slavery. The line between indentured servant and slave is stark, to be sure, the reality is that a girl like Polly would have a lot more in common with Amari than she thinks. What is at work in this relationship is the very concept of racism. Economically speaking, a white indentured servant was much closer to the status of slave than to slave owner. Legally, however, they enjoyed much abundant rights than the slave who, of course, enjoyed none.
The routine of the ship took on a horrible monotony. The everlasting indigo blue of the ocean surrounded them day after day. The copper sun and the piercing paleness of the sky, which were so welcome in the captives’ homeland, imprisoned them each hour.
Sometimes, writers will come up with a title for their novel that becomes a mystery to the reader. It is never mentioned by name within the narrative and may seem to have no immediately obvious thematic connection to the story. And then there are cases like this in which the narrator makes it easy on the reader when it comes to understanding how the title relates to the story. This is not, in fact, the only description of the titular imagery in book; it is not even the only time that the precise phrase “copper sun” will be used. This explicit integration of the title into the narrative should be taken as a strong message to the reader that the author chose the title with careful consideration and intent. Knowing this can in turn lead to a deeper critical understanding of the book as a whole.
