What do you think is Harriet’s greatest personal strength? What evidence can you find in the book to support what you say? (Give page references to back up your thinking.)
Harriet possesses many admirable character traits, but perhaps her most inspiring one is perseverance. She has nearly impossible odds to surmount in her quest to escape bondage and make a better life for her children: she is a slave (obviously), she is a woman, she has a malicious and indomitable master, she is very far from the Free States, and she lives in a time when runaway slaves were being obsessively hunted down. Nevertheless, Harriet does not let any of that stop her. She endures horrible conditions in her hiding place for seven years. She has a harrowing escape to the north complete with a frightening swamp crawling with snakes and a perilous voyage in which her fate is in the hands of a white captain. She has to support herself in the north and avoid capture. Throughout, she works to elude the greedy and savage Dr. Flint and find a way to secure freedom for herself and her children. For years she does not give up, even though she is tested almost to her breaking point. Other characters, such as Aunt Marthy, Benjamin, and William demonstrate similar perseverance in the face of sorrow, physical pain, and impossible odds.
“He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled . . . But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him.”
“Whatever slavery might do to me, it could not shackle my children.”
“The dream of my life is not yet realized. I do not sit with my children in a home of my own.”
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