Product Description

The tragic story of a rebellious, fiercely intelligent young slave who breaks all the rules: in learning to read and write; in falling in love with a white girl, the daughter of his owner, and finally in trying to escape and joining her in the free North.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126754 in Books
• Published on: 1995-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

Slavery indicted from the sadness of one man
One man's tragedy - and the punishment of his continual rememberance of it - serves to illustrate the appalling injustice that built America, and gave rise to English cities such as Liverpool (where I write from). I mean slavery. We all know that slavery is wrong, and desperately so. But being convicted of it in your own heart is something quite different from a cerebral knowledge of that truth. Just as 'Schindler's List' shocked us into despising Nazism, 'The Longest Memory' should shock us into despising slavery. D'Aguiar energetically narrates this tragedy which reminds us of the humanity in us all - regardless of our status - and the immorality of negating the dignity that humanity bestows on us.

plain and simple, yet full of complications
D'Aguiar explores the errors of humanity in his first text, "The Longest Memory" in a simple context using complex ideas. It discusses the impact slarvey has on human values and the impact this system has on a young slave. It looks at the events surrounding this slave, Chapel, the way he was miss conceived as a black slave with a white father. Yet, Chapel remained a slave till his death, but not without struggle. It is also this struggle to outrun the slavery system that bring Chapel to a tragic end, despite all the warning from his foster father, Whitechapel. This stroy begins with a detail account from Whitechapel of his involvement in the death of his son. He shows empathy for his son's complicated situation; for his son, a mere slave, was in a star-crossed love with the daughter of the plantation's masters. Whitechapel, having been a honest and model slave for all the years of his service, give all his knowledge to enlighten Chapel on his class and the way he shouuld behave. The setting of the novel is in a early 19th century Virigian plantation, where the practice of slavery existed and continued to thrive. It was on this plantation that a story would be told; the story of Chapel, born a slave with half the blood of a White Overseer. Chapel born as a intelligent slave, learning to be literate with Lydia, the factor that caused his runaway and death. Being told about the boundary slavery has created, Chapel gave up on his family to run away and met up with his love, Lydia. Despite this fairy tale situation, the outcome is ugly. It demonstrates the impact slavery has brought to humanity where Chapel was beaten to death by his own half brother, the new overseer. The memory of Whitechapel further explains the complication of this era and the unexpected results are proves of his ideas. These long memories should better be forgotten, yet its hard to forget.

You can understand the way there life was from this book
This is a good book who is intrested in the time this books setting took place. Easy readingg if you are able to distingish characters, as they alll seem to share the same name.