The condition of a slave
In the novel, one of the main characters is a slave named Handful. She was born into slavery but her situation was different because her mother never gave up on her dream of being free one day. Charlotte, Handful’s mother, tries to preach to her daughter the same ideas she guides herself after in life and thus Handful grows up to believe that she could one day be free. The conditions in which a slave lived were extremely harsh and they could not decide for themselves what they want to do with their own lives. The slaves were not allowed to leave their master’s homes without being given permits and were often mistreated, being given harsh jobs to do and beaten when they would misbehave. Because of this condition, it was no wonder that some slaves harbored the idea or running away and building a better life for themselves. One of the slaves who hoped they would escape slavery was Charlotte who ran away from her master. She is one of the slaves who was not afraid of what other people would think and who decided to do what was best for her instead of waiting for her life to end and for her to die as a slave.
A woman's place
In the novel, we are presented with various strong female characters that are not afraid to take what they want. Sarah for example, dreams of being involved in law one day and tries to convince her father to let her become a jurist, something unheard off until that moment in the society where she lives. Handful was influenced by her mother who refused to be controlled by men and who is not afraid to enter in a relationship considered as being unconventional by the standards of the time. In comparison with the other women living in that society, Sarah, Charlotte and Handful want something more than they are allowed to want. Because of this, they are criticized by their male companions and by the people who believed that a woman should know her place and that a woman should never want something more from life.
Religion and freedom
In the time when the novel takes place, various other religious confessions began appearing in America. Some of the oldest religious confessions gave the ill-intended people in the country the impression that they had the right to abuse the slaves whom they considered as being inferior and whom they saw as people who needed to be saved. The major religious confessions of the time claimed that they were saving the slaves and bringing them closer to God and in this manner they would justify their actions. Little by little, new religions began appearing, religions claiming that the blacks were not inferior to the whites but rather that they were equal with them. As it was expected, this manner of perceiving the reality was not so easily accepted by slave owners who would lose their profit if someone were to claim that they could no longer abuse the blacks. People like Sarah were attracted by these new ideas, claiming that slaves had the chance to have equal rights with the white owners and she was inspired to fight for the rights of those people.
