Previous
Foil
Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Chapter Twenty: New Perils
Explanation and Analysis—The Best They Could Do:
In Chapter 20, Linda goes out to Snaky Swamp to wait until Uncle Phillip has her new hiding place ready. This moment foreshadows the fortitude, patience, and gratitude Linda will have to embody to make it to freedom:
My fear of snakes had been increased by the venomous bite I had received, and I dreaded to enter this hiding-place. But I was in no situation to choose, and I gratefully accepted the best that my poor, persecuted friends could do for me.
Snakes are a recurring fear of Linda's in the memoir. To her, they represent both the idea of evil and the real environmental threats that stand between her and freedom. She has already been bitten by a snake once while hiding from Dr. Flint. The snake bite functions almost like an extension of Dr. Flint's abusive reach: it is hard for her not to experience it as punishment, in his absence, for defying his will. Linda does not want to face snakes again, but she realizes in this passage that escape, if it is possible, will require her to rely on others and take what they can give her. She is about to enter a garret hiding place that she won't leave for years because that is what her family can provide. She is eventually going to end up in New York, where the Fugitive Slave Law makes it too dangerous for her not to accept a white woman's offer to buy her freedom from the Flints. Linda had long hoped to take her own freedom by running away from South Carolina. Opposed to the idea of recognizing her own legal status as property, she always resisted Grandmother's philosophy that it was best to buy your freedom. New York was supposed to represent Linda's success, but even there she must rely on the best others can give her.
When Linda concedes that it will be best to allow someone to pay off the Flints to get them to leave her alone, she is not conceding that she is really property. Rather, she is demonstrating her adaptability and willingness to persevere when the world doesn't yet have anything btetter to offer her. In the end, Jacobs presents a picture of anti-slavery and abolitionist efforts as extraordinarily cooperative and full of compromise. She also suggests that the United States is still plagued by far too many snakes. In fact, she compares the Flints and other enslavers to snakes when they go to the North to hunt Black people who have escaped enslavement. She refuses to let these snakes keep her from living her life and cooperating with her "poor, persecuted friends" as best she can.
Related Themes:
