ISP Blog Post #5

After finishing The Book Of Negroes, I decided to analyze the novel using an archetypal  perspective. Amanita is the hero of the story since she helps so many people throughout her travels, by teaching others to read and write which was not common. I think that Georgia or Amanita's mother are classified as 'The Great Mothers' since they were always the strong mother role in Amanita's life. Amanita's mother taught her how to catch babies and was always there for her when she was young. Georgia took on the motherly role when Amanita arrived at the plantation and taught her how things were done around there. The wise old man would be Daddy Moses because everyone listens to what he has to say and he can always calm the crowd and give them something to think about. Appleby being the fox because he was a mean man who thought he could do whatever he wanted with his slaves because he was their owner. Amanita learned a lot from these people and who she was a person. As a reader I can think of people in my life and classify them as a archetypal characters in a way.

Amanita is the obvious protagonist and you can really see that shift of innocence to an experienced woman. Amanita grows up in a familiar village called Bayo living under the shelter of her parents. Amanita pulled her own weight helping her parents but was protected from the dangers of outside her village. When she was taken she described herself as a free Muslim that these men could not take her away because she was free. Here she was innocent, she wasn't old or experienced enough to realize that being free born meant nothing for people who are getting paid. At the end of the book you can tell that she is older and has learned a lot from the Americans and British. Her experiences through slavery made her the person she is today.

Amanita has dealt with her fair share of danger being a negro. When she was first taken her mother and father rebelled against the slave trappers and they were killed. From there on Amanita had to be smart she knew she could not beat the men with weapons because she could not win. Amanita watched a young girl captured by a wild animal, she had to make sure that the danger would not happen to her. Dangerous situations occurred to Amanita quiet frequently and at the plantation she had to be careful not to cause mistakes or she would be punished. Amanita had to survive times with disease, no food, water, clothes, or shelter in harsh weather conditions. Danger was always around the corner for Amanita but she survived to tell her story.

The reunion home for Amanita is not the one she excepted. She was in her home country but still a far ways to get to her village which she could not get out of her mind. The archetypal characters make the story more relatable to readers such as myself because we have never lived through slavery. The hero, wise man, trickster, and mother roles show how everyone's life is not always easy but whenever we fall down we get back up. Everyone has troubles in life just like Amanita we just have to learn from how we dealt with the troubles in order to live life to the fullest.