Wrong portraits of freedom
The freedom that comes to Henry has a very specific shape to it. Having observed "freedom" from slavery to mean owning slaves and getting rich by exploiting the powerless, he turns around and uses his freedom to do just that. He purchases land and slaves and begins his life as a slaver, imposing order as he learned it from Robbins. His opinions about slavery are shaped by his experience of slavery as a child.
The farm imagery
There isn't a giant warehouse over the farms to keep the sun off of the slaves. There is no giant fan to give them a breeze. Instead, the farm is like a kind of hell, because they are subjected to some of the most tedious, painful, pain-staking work of its kind, and for no pay. They are perfectly hopeless to enfranchise themselves, and when slaves do earn their freedom in this novel, they fail to free themselves from the hateful constructs of slavery.
Hopelessness depicted
When Moses begins to imagine what might happen in the future, he shows his cards. He needs to pretend that like Henry, he will also be able to become rich and powerful, and this fantasy has a certain imagery associated with it. He wants to marry Caladonia and be her husband and take over the farm. Notice that even he assumes that freedom is just for him but not for others. In the end, he is so wrong that he must flee from Caladonia after he breaches the subject with her.
The portrait of betrayal
The story is a satirical depiction of racism not from white people to Black people, but between the Black community itself, because the characters who do the most harm in the story are the slaves who attain their freedom without freeing their minds of the lies and hatred that shaped the culture of slavery in the first place. Therefore, the story involves methodical depictions of traitorous behavior when people see others as existentially beneath them.
