![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() We compare this character to the pampered white woman who instinctively understands that the situation in which she finds herself, a mistress who has power over another’s physical and emotional welfare, is not tolerable. It is a device which works well, as the reader is propelled through the injustices and abuses of the women in subjection, who are invariably feisty and strong. I read this book straight after I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, set in 1962 Mississippi, and both novels roam between the viewpoint of the oppressed slave worker or housemaid and the developing awareness of the privileged female mistress. The novel charts the period between 1803 to 1838 and the first person perspective moves between Handful, a ten year old slave, and Sarah, the girl to whom she is given as a present, wrapped tightly in lavender ribbons. Although ‘owning people was as natural as breathing’, eleven year old Sarah Grimké is uncomfortable with her new gift and this is the beginning of her awakening, and it is the pivotal event to her later pioneering work towards human and women’s rights. Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings is about the brutality of slavery in America’s deep south, at the point when some attitudes had started to change. ![]()
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