The Secret of Wings: Sue Monk Kidd's Response to the American Dream Jared Anthony Ingram College

In America, according to the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal”. Unfortunately, this previous statement was not completely accurate in many ways concerning American citizens. The term “equality” is reserved to a specific social class, this remains the truth even today. But despite this inconvenience, the lower social classes had aspirations for a better living standard. Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Invention of Wings, properly depicted the longing of freedom among pre- civil war slaves.

In The Invention of Wings the term wings symbolizes the feeling of freedom and liberty. According to the book, wings were invented by captive black slaves in order to create a sense of purpose and hope. During the time period before the civil war, slavery among Africans was nearing a climactic point. Slaves were constantly looking for an escape from their captive life styles. This escape could be both mental and physical depending on the individual slaves and the slave’s state of being. In The Invention of Wings, the wings represented the freedom that slaves longed so much for. Handful’s mother told Handful about the physical “wings” that the slaves possessed back in Africa. Handful’s mother stated that “When we came...