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 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Quadroon’s Home”
Horatio rents a cottage in a beautiful, idyllic plane three miles from Richmond. Clotel is aware “that a union with her proscribed race was unrecognised by law” (64), and she tells him that if their “mutual love” and his “own conscience” (64) are not enough to keep him faithful to her, she would not try to hold him “by a single fetter” (65).
The two live “as happily as circumstances permit” (65) in their cottage, “secluded from the world” (65). Clotel gives birth to a girl named Mary, whose “complexion was still lighter than her mother” (65). As Mary grows into a great beauty, Horatio spends less and less time at home. Clotel, despite the beauty of her surroundings, which are “so well adapted to her poetic spirit” (65), suffers “anxious thoughts and fearful foreboding” (65) as a result of the precariousness of their happiness. She expresses to Horatio her desire for the family to move to France or England. Horatio is tempted by this idea; however, as he is becoming more politically active, he prefers to stay in America, where he can nurture his “ambition to become a statesman” (66).
Horatio becomes politically connected with a wealthy man who has a daughter named Gertrude. While not as beautiful as Clotel, Gertrude, whom Horatio suspects is attracted to him, presents “a pretty contrast to” Clotel (66). Horatio, of “weakened […] moral principle” (66), is tempted by the solidification of his political connection as well as by “variety in love” (66). Clotel is not unaware of the changes taking place in him.
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Slave Market”
Walker, now in New Orleans, takes up residence in a “slave pen” with rooms that “resemble cells in a prison” (67), a plentiful supply of physical restraints and punishment devices, and a fortified back yard. On the morning he exhibits the slaves for sale, potential buyers question the slaves about their ages, physical conditions, and past owners, sometimes requiring that the slaves show them their backs so they can see whether they’ve been whipped for disobedience. Althesa is sold to a New Orleans man named Mr. Crawford, who buys her as a maid for his new wife. Brown describes the “heartrending and cruel traffic” (70) of the slave trade, writing, “Known to God only is the amount of human agony and suffering which sends its cry from the slave markets and Negro pens, unheard and unheeded by man, up to his ear” (70).
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Religious Teacher”
Reverend John Peck, Currer’s purchaser, had moved from his native Connecticut to Natchez, obtaining a plantation with 70 slaves as well as a congregation of his own. Currer lives in the town residence of his plantation.
Mr. Peck tells his friend Miles Carlton, who is visiting him for a few days, the importance of teaching the gospel to slaves. When Carlton asks him what he thinks “about the right of man to his liberty” (72), Mr. Peck states that he has “searched in vain for any authority for man’s natural rights” (72) and that Adam and Eve “forfeited” (72) their rights in the Garden of Eden. Carlton invokes the Declaration of Independence to suggest one’s right to liberty does not depend on whether one is black or white. Mr. Peck retorts that “all this talk about rights” is “mere humbug” (73) and that “[t]he Bible is older than the Declaration of Independence” (73). Carlton, more interested in philosophy than religion, replies that his conscience is his Bible.
Witnessing this conversation is Mr. Peck’s nineteen-year-old daughter Georgiana, who has recently returned from school in New England and “had learned to feel deeply for the injured Negro” (74). Stating that she is “by education and sympathy a Northerner” (74), Georgiana questions whether slavery is in congruence with “God’s behest” (75). She believes Christians must “love they neighbor as thyself” (75) regardless of “colour or condition” (75). Her words offer Carlton his first vision of Christianity’s “true light” (75).
On Sunday at Mr. Peck’s farm, Carlton watches as Snyder, the missionary, speaks with the slaves. Snyder tells the slaves they must be compliant not just for their masters but for God, whose will it is that they are servants “because, no doubt, he knew that condition would be best for you” (77). He implores them not to be “eye-servants” (77) who are obedient only when their masters are looking. He says they “have a great advantage over most white people” (78), who have great responsibility, whereas slaves “have nothing but your daily labour to look after” (78). They must patiently accept punishment even if undeserved, for God will reward them “in the next life” (79).
After Snyder leaves with Carlton and Huckelby, the overseer, the slaves discuss how Snyder seemed eager to impress Carlton and how gospel preaching is designed “to fool de black people” (81). One slave, Uncle Simon, says the Bible is full of many messages, but Snyder only lets them hear the parts about servants obeying their masters.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
In Chapter 1, Clotel was described as having a “complexion as white as most of those who were waiting with a wish to become her purchasers” (49) and the poise of “one superior to her position” (49). In Chapter 4, she is described as having a “high poetic nature” (64). In addition, her speech, unlike that of slaves depicted in Chapters 5 and 6, is not written in dialect. Clotel speaks in formal English, telling Horatio, “If the mutual love we have for each other, and the dictates of your own conscience do not cause you to remain my husband, and your affections fall from me, I would not, if I could, hold you by a single fetter” (64-65). Brown’s depiction of Clotel is closer to that of the white characters than to those of the slaves. Furthermore, her docility and deference correspond with 19th-century ideals of womanhood. Brown’s molding his heroine in the model of the ideal 19th-century woman arguably invites sympathy from 19th-century white readers who identify with her. Clotel’s being nearly indistinguishable from white people reminds white readers that humanity is not dependent on skin color.
These chapters show how slaves are both dehumanized and infantilized. The slaves are made to stand before potential buyers, who inspect them as they would cattle and express lack of understanding as to why they would weep for lost loved ones. Slave owners also claim that slavery is for the good of the slaves themselves. The paternalistic treatment of slaves is nowhere more evident than in Snyder the missionary, who warns that to complain is to “find fault with God himself, who hath made you what you are” (77). God, he tells them, “made you servants, because, no doubt, he knew that condition would be best for you in this world” (77). Snyder suggests to the slaves that they benefit from slavery because, while slave owners must provide food and clothing and worry over money, the slaves “are quite eased from all these cares, and have nothing but your daily labour to look after” (78). In this scene, Brown illustrates the way slaveholders manipulate the Bible to try to impress on the slaves why they should obey their masters, equating obedience to their masters with obedience to God.
This manipulation, however, fails to work. Though cast as chattel, the slaves are fully aware of Snyder’s ulterior motives. One slave believes the “whole study is to try to fool de black people” (81); another affirms that “thars more in de Bible” (82) than servants obeying their masters, but “Snyder never reads any other part to us” (82). This passage shows not only the failure of slave owners to convince the slaves that God intends for them to be servants but also the erroneousness of slave owners’ assumption that slaves are unintelligent or subhuman. The slaves’ awareness is similarly illustrated by Clotel’s terror of “the unavoidable and dangerous position which the tyranny of society had awarded her” (65). Clotel understands that Horatio is not bound by law to stay with her—and indeed, her fears seem confirmed when Horatio is tempted by Gertrude. Horatio, of “weakened […] moral principle” (66), is no less vulnerable than the slave owners profess the slaves to be. Though slaves are deliberately prevented from reading and are taught they are lesser than their masters, as Clotel shows, lack of moral character knows no race or color.
