Cora's View Of Freedom

“We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy” (Dalai Lama). Cora’s earliest definition of freedom stemmed from the little she saw around her and what little she knew of the world. From the stories she heard the other slaves tell, to the few glimpses of freedom she witnessed her white counterparts enjoy. As the saying goes, you can’t miss what you never had. At first Cora didn’t run for her freedom so much as she ran from the abuse and the hurt. She chose to run that night because she knew those stories she heard of the new plantation owner the other Randall brother, stories of harsher abuse and tougher punishments, were about to become her reality. Though from her early days on the plantation,
A basic freedom, but so much more than anything she had. At the first thought of running, Cora knew there would be risks, but she could not comprehend the magnitude of those risks. With nothing left to lose, that innocent and naïve view of freedom was much greater than anything she had, and she chose to take the risk. That first step, modest in the overall journey Cora would undertake, is the first step to freedom. It was in itself a part of the freedom she sought. Early on she knew the white man’s fears though she did not understand them, and she saw the black man’s oppression and how they were broken slowly over time, as an entire mass and not just the person. But having never truly witnessed or experienced freedom, she thought that basic privileges were what freedom meant. Having only known the abuse, the cat-o’-nine-tails, and abandonment she thought freedom would be an escape from that. As the story progresses Cora’s definition of freedom evolves every time it seems to escape her. When Cora and Caesar first reached South Carolina, the freedom attained them was like nothing they had seen before. Here they had considered themselves
The harsh realization that they were being manipulated under the guise of freedom snapped them back to reality. They worked where they were told to, ate what was given to them, earned the wages they were allowed, and shopped in the store they were allowed in. They were not asked before being assigned a new job, but were simply told where to go that very day. Even the doctors, under the guise of free treatment and the black uplift movement, had provided mandatory treatments to members of the black community either against their wills or without their knowledge. “‘It’s important research,’ Bertram informed him. ‘Discover how a disease spreads, the trajectory of infection, and we approach a cure.’ … The syphilis program was one of many studies and experiments under way at the colored wing of the hospital” (Whitehead). In some instances these treatments were in fact experiments, infecting the black population and not treating those infections in hopes of discovering the effects and level of ailment. But to Cora and Caesar at the time, this was more freedom than they had ever dreamt