29 pages • 58 minutes read
Gary PaulsenNightjohn
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1993A 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 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Sarny tells the story of Alice, a field worker who is mentally unstable. Waller made Alice a breeder, but she fought against it. He tied her down in the breeding shed “to make it happen” (43), but the trauma of the experience left her in a worse mental state than before. Alice was caught wandering near Waller’s white house and was punished: She was shackled to the wall of the spring house, stripped naked, and whipped until her back was shredded. Mammy was forced to apply salt to Alice’s back to cause more pain, and Alice was left chained to the wall overnight. Sarny helped Mammy treat Alice’s wounds with grease, and Alice lay silent and motionless for several days. On the night of Nightjohn’s arrival, Alice tried to run away.
To Sarny, running is fruitless, because no one has managed to escape and the slaves have nowhere to go in the first place; Waller also has vicious dogs, trained to track and attack humans. A man named Jim once tried to run, but the dogs caught him in half a day. They attacked him while he hung from a tree, ripping his lower half to shreds and killing him; Waller left Jim’s body there. The only other person whom Sarny knows who “tried to run” was Pawley. He wasn’t even trying to escape; he was meeting with a girl from a neighboring plantation and fell asleep outside the slave quarters. Waller set his dogs on Pawley and later castrated him. Pawley bled to death in the quarters. When Alice ran the night of Nightjohn’s arrival, the dogs found her and attacked her chest. Mammy stitched the wound, and Alice lived, but now she only lies down and stares at the wall.
On the night of Alice’s return, Nightjohn teaches Sarny the letter B. Mammy knocks Nightjohn over when she sees him teaching Sarny. She knows the danger that their lessons pose should Waller find out. Nightjohn explains that he successfully ran away to the north once. He came back so he could teach other slaves reading and writing. Mammy softens but still questions the merits of reading and writing. Nightjohn says that these skills are the only way they will be able to write about slavery—“what they doing to us” (58). Mammy grows quiet, and Nightjohn teaches the letter C next.
Chapter 5 Summary
It’s planting season, so Nightjohn is too tired to teach Sarny every night. Slowly, he teaches the letters A-G, and Sarny learns to combine letters to make words. Sarny’s first word is “bag” (60). She is so excited to know a word that she grows careless, saying and writing it everywhere. Waller catches her writing in the dirt and punches her in the head. He demands to know where Sarny learned to write, but she runs to the quarters after he kicks her. Waller drags Mammy from the quarters and chains her to the spring house wall. He leaves her there for the day, as he likes punishing his slaves when those working the fields return—to set an example. Sarny knows Mammy’s punishment will be her fault, but the latter remains calm.
When evening comes and the field workers return, Sarny tells Nightjohn what happened, and Waller emerges with a buggy and horse harness. He strips Mammy naked and forces her to drag the buggy with the harness. He continually whips her to go faster. Then, Nightjohn speaks up and admits he was the one who taught Sarny letters. Waller chains Nightjohn to the wall and uses a chisel and hammer to cut off both of his middle toes. He reminds the other workers that it’s against the law for them to know any letters or numbers, and that the legal punishment is “removal of an extremity” (74). Nightjohn is silent and stiff throughout the ordeal and is taken to the quarters. Once Waller leaves, Sarny runs to Mammy and tends to her wounds, all the while hoping there is a terrible hell with a special place reserved for their master.
Chapters 4-5 Analysis
The first half of Chapter 4 centers on Alice, a character whom Gary Paulsen uses to highlight the Dehumanizing Cruelty of Slavery—in particular, the ensuing trauma. Sarny explains that Alice is mentally unstable. However, her mental state does not warrant special treatment in the eyes of the cruel Waller. She is forced to become a breeder, and Paulsen’s description implies that she is raped. This trauma takes a toll on Alice’s already precarious mental health and leads to a severe whipping later on when she is caught wandering near the master’s white house. Waller extends no compassion or understanding toward Alice. Ironically, instead of his punishment having its intended effect of forcing her into submission, it causes her to attempt an escape.
Alice’s story, alongside Jim and Pawley’s (other slaves who left the plantation), serves to emphasize Waller’s extreme cruelty and the slaves’ hopeless outlook on escaping. Sarny remarks that even if they could escape, they have nowhere to go. It isn’t until Nightjohn mentions being a free man in the north that Sarny recognizes the possibility of freedom. Paulsen describes the escapees’ gruesome punishments: being hunted and ripped apart by dogs, whipped, and in Pawley’s case, castrated. He also highlights Waller’s cruelty in his punishments of Mammy and Nightjohn. Waller is shown to take pleasure in brutality, smiling when Nightjohn comes forward and admits to teaching Sarny letters. Sarny’s descriptions of Waller show her intense hatred for him and suggest that she views him as more animal than human. Short, sharp phrases like “pig stink” (62) characterize Waller as animal-like. This language is ironic; Waller treats his slaves like animals, and in turn, they view him as an animal. Furthermore, descriptions of Waller play with the contrast between black and white, characterizing black as good and white as evil. For example, Sarny calls Waller “white ugly” (61) and “white stink” (62), which shows that she thinks of whiteness as monstrous, repulsive. The only part of Waller that is black is his boots, which Sarny notes are not the “good” kind of black; this color is different from Mammy and Nightjohn’s skin. Paulsen’s juxtaposition of black and white shows how Sarny’s view of skin color is the opposite of that toward skin color in the pre-Civil War South.
Paulsen further develops the two adults in Sarny’s life in Chapters 4-5. Nightjohn is shown to be selfless, emphasizing the importance of reading and writing and leaving freedom in the north to teach slaves. He sees the big picture—what these skills could mean for slaves in the future. His passion and wisdom seem to impress Mammy.
While Mammy is initially angry at Nightjohn for teaching Sarny to read, she comes to accept it upon learning his motive. Her reaction comes from a place of love for Sarny and a desire to protect her from punishment, but she soon sees that the best thing for the girl is education. Nightjohn and Mammy’s reactions to their punishments also reveal aspects of their character. Mammy calmly awaits her sentence, while Nightjohn taking her place speaks to his courage and honor.
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