73 pages • 2 hours read
William Wells BrownClotel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1853A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Death of the Parson” Summary
Though previously he “had never dreamed of marriage” (123), Carlton begins to fall in love with Georgiana. Mr. Peck, noticing, does everything he can to ensure Carlton stays as long as possible. When Mr. Peck suddenly falls ill with cholera, Carlton sits with him on his deathbed, further endearing himself to Georgiana. Mr. Peck dies, and Carlton decides to stay until Georgiana’s family arrives from Connecticut.
Upon observing that Mr. Peck’s slaves are not upset at his passing, Carlton suggests to Georgiana that they are “ungrateful” (124). Georgiana asks him what “have they to be grateful for” (124). She tells him that even the most kindness extended to a slave “would be unkindness if given to whites” (124) and that “[e]verybody knows that slavery in its best and mildest form is wrong” (124).
Carlton and Georgiana are walking along the property when they hear the slaves, led by Sam, singing. Carlton suggests they listen. Sam sings lyrics in which he celebrates Mr. Peck’s death, and the chorus agrees. The song describes how now that he is dead, “our blood will awhile cease to flow” (125) and “no more will [he] send our wives to Tennessee” (126). Carlton regrets that Georgiana has heard the song, but Georgiana believes that “[i]t is from these unguarded expressions of the feelings of the Negroes, that we should learn a lesson” (127). She tells Carlton that no matter how hard a master works a slave and no matter how he “debase[s] and crush[es] him” (127), “the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all” (127). The desire for freedom “is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of the Deity” (127).
When they return to the house, Sam looks “as solemn and as dignified” (127) as ever. Carlton is surprised that Sam is “capable of so much deception” (127). Georgiana tells him the “system of slavery is one of deception, and Sam, you see, has only been a good scholar” (127). She tells him she plans to free all of her father’s slaves and that she wishes to “set an example” (128) to others.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Retaliation”
Horatio feels “the deepest humiliation” (129) seeing his daughter Mary as a slave in his own house. His wife seeks to “punish” Horatio and, as Mary is light skinned, she is “met with little or no sympathy from the other slaves” (129). Mrs. Green, in an effort to make Mary look more like the other slaves, sends her outside to work in the garden without protection. After a time, Mary passes out from heat exhaustion. The cook, Dinah, complains that Mary isn’t working; Mrs. Green assures her she is just “seasoning” (129) and that her work will soon improve. Dinah says she dislikes biracial slaves because they “always think dey sef good as white folks” (129).
After a couple of weeks of working in the sun, Mary’s complexion darkens. However, Mrs. Green is still aggravated by her because she looks so much like Horatio. Horatio seeks to send her away because looking at her reminds him of Clotel. However, Mrs. Green is “determined to carry out her unfeeling and fiendish designs” (130).
Mary, Brown reminds us, is the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson. Brown includes several quotations in which Jefferson condemned slavery, calling it “the most unremitting despotism” (130) and asking whether “the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God” (130). Brown notes that Jefferson “is not the only American statesman” (131) who has spoken against slavery while leaving “his own children to die slaves” (131).
Chapter 18 Summary: “The Liberator”
Georgiana would like to free her father’s slaves but is prevented from doing so by “both law and public opinion in the state” (132). She realizes that she could do so if she were to marry Carlton, with whom she is in love. However, Carlton will not propose marriage for fear of appearing to be “a fortune-hunter” (132), and Georgiana, despite having read about “women’s rights” (132), cannot muster the course to approach him herself. One evening, she overhears Sam telling Carlton that he and the other slaves wish Carlton and Georgiana would marry; Carlton expresses fear that Georgiana would not marry him because she wouldn’t marry a man “unless she loved” him (133). This conversation inspires Georgiana to tell Carlton she wants to marry him. Carlton is overjoyed.
Once she and Carlton marry, “[n]ew rules” (133) are established, one of the first being the disposal of Huckelby and Snyder. Georgiana believes Snyder’s sermons are intended to make the slaves “better satisfied with their condition, and more valuable as pieces of property” (133).
Georgiana expresses concern over where to send the slaves. Carlton suggests sending them to “their native land” (134) of Liberia, but Georgiana tells him America is their native land and that a slave, having “cleared up the lands, built towns, and enriched the soil with his blood and tears” (134), has just as much right to be in America as they do. Carlton agrees but warns that others will not. Georgiana says they “will set the example” (135).
Georgiana and Carlton employ “a system of gradual emancipation” in order “to prepare the Negro for freedom” (136). She begins to pay them for their work; they will be freed when they earn a specified amount. Under this arrangement, “[a] sedateness, a care, an economy, an industry, took possession” (136) of the slaves, who become “temperate, moral, [and] religious” (136). When another slaveholder, marveling at how hard the slaves are working without any supervision, offers to buy one of the most industrious slaves, Carlton refuses.
Georgiana and Carlton teach the slaves Scripture, and the slaves listen attentively, showing “that they appreciated the gospel when given to them in its purity” (138). Georgiana is saddened when Currer dies of yellow fever, for she has heard of her history and was considering sending her to New Orleans to be with Althesa.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
Clotel frequently shows how two people in similar situations behave in different ways, thus revealing their true selves. Henry Morton continues to contrast with Horatio, who in Chapter 17 watches passively as his wife is deliberately cruel to his daughter Mary and in fact wishes to send her away to avoid being reminded of Clotel (130). Just as Horatio is contrasted with Henry, Mrs. Green is contrasted with Georgiana. In Mrs. Green and Georgiana, Brown offers opposing images of Southern women. Mrs. Green uses Mary as an object with which she can retaliate against Horatio. Her comment to the cook Dinah that as Mary lies overheated in the sun she is merely “seasoning” (129) casts Mary as meat to be consumed. In contrast, Georgiana, after the death of her father, seeks to “set the example” (135) for other Southerners. She disposes of Snyder, whose sermons she believes to be intended to make the slaves “better satisfied with their condition, and more valuable as pieces of property” (133). When Carlton suggests they send the slaves to Liberia, Georgiana answers that America is “their native land” and that, having built its cities and planted its land, the slaves have as much right to be there as they themselves. Rather than growing angry, she is understanding when the slaves celebrate the death of her father, telling Carlton that they “should learn a lesson” (127) from their songs. She begins paying them for their labor, and the slaves, motivated when treated with dignity, show themselves to be “temperate, moral, [and] religious” (136). By recognizing the slaves’ humanity, Georgiana enables them to show their godliness. When a neighbor asks Carlton why the slaves are working so hard, Carlton replies that “they are like other people, flesh and blood” (137)—like everyone else, they yearn for, and deserve, dignity and respect.
The theme of identity—who is seen as human, who is accepted and rejected, and the ways people slide between identities—manifests in these chapters in a variety of ways. The subordination of women is demonstrated in Georgiana’s difficulty freeing the slaves: “both law and public opinion” (132) dictate that she must yield to a male relation, in this case an uncle “whose counsel would go against liberating the Negroes” (132). The only way for her to ensure the slaves are freed is to marry Carlton, whom she knows is of the same mind. Georgiana is not unaware of her own limitations of power, of her need to defer to men, and of her dependence on men for what power she does have.
These chapters also further develop the conflict of biracial slaves, who are simultaneously not white enough to avoid being subordinated by white people and not dark enough to avoid being looked at with suspicion by other slaves. Dinah the cook tells Mrs. Green that she doesn’t like biracial slaves because they “always tink dey sef good as white folks” (129). Issues of identity are not unique to biracial slaves, however. Sam also toggles between identities when he blithely celebrates Mr. Peck’s death, then resumes his “solemn” and “dignified” (127) deference in the Pecks’ drawing room. Carlton wonders at Sam’s “deception” (127); Georgiana explains that the entire “system of slavery is one of deception” (117) and that Sam “has only been a good scholar” (117). In Chapter 17, Brown reminds readers that Mary, the object of Mrs. Green’s cruelty, is “the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson” (130), who spoke vociferously on the evils of slavery while keeping slaves himself. Jefferson, Brown writes, “is not the only American statesman” (131) who speaks out against slavery while fathering children with slaves. When the nation itself struggles with its identity, it is not surprising that its people do, as well.
