Jubilee

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1966

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Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “Grimes: ‘Cotton is king!’”

Vyry spends the winter in the Big House with Aunt Sally, where it’s warmer and more comfortable. It’s also a much shorter walk to the cabins. While the field hands protect their “frost-bitten feet” from the cold with “burlap torn from ragged croker [sic] sacks,” Vyry has stockings, long dresses, and an additional apron to wrap around her waist (76).

Vyry also notices that there’s more sickness and hunger in the winter. There are poor whites, some of whom are Marster John’s relations, who knock on the kitchen door, asking for corn. These poor whites, and Grimes is among their ranks, don’t live much better than the slaves but take comfort in their being white. In the summer, Grimes hires skilled white workers to do tasks on the plantation. Occasionally, he hires black people, too. One of them is a free black man, “a blacksmith with his own shop” (80), whom Grimes avoids hiring due to the possible trouble he could cause. On the other hand, he takes pleasure in hiring the poor whites, whom he considers good workers.

One day, Grimes appears at the kitchen’s back door, hat in hand, and asks to see Missy Salina. When she appears, he tells her that slaves broke into the smokehouse and “[stole] the best meat” (82), while the field rats eat the rest. Salina orders him to call all the field hands into the yard and to threaten them with a beating. Grimes enlists three white guards and some of his relatives to search the slaves’ cabins for the missing meat. He then writes a letter to Marse John, describing the situation. John is in the state capital, Milledgeville, on legislative business.

A week later, Grimes’ wife and one of his children fall ill. The little girl dies within hours after a doctor’s visit. Additionally, Jane Ellen is pregnant but miscarries weeks before the baby is due. Grimes’ mood, predictably, dims and the slaves stay out of his way. One morning, he leaves his house and finds one of the bloodhounds digging under his steps. The dog unearths a fetish doll “made with some of the clothes from the child who had died” (86). Grimes notices that the doll “was marked to resemble his little girl” (86). He heads to the Big House and asks to see Missy Salina. When he shows her the doll, she’s horrified at first, then laughs at Grimes’ superstitious tendencies. She tells him not to worry but instead to go home and comfort his wife.

Summer arrives, and the plantation buzzes with overactivity. An overworked mule falls dead from heatstroke, causing one of the wagons to break down. Grimes goes over to Old Grandpa Tom, an elderly slave who manages Marster John’s stables and demands that he “bring out two of Marster’s best thoroughbred horses for him to use in the emergency” (87). Old Tom refuses, afraid that Grimes will overwork them as he did the mule. Grimes insists that the old slave obey him. With Marster John gone, Grimes insists that he’s taken the planter’s place. When Old Tom hesitates, Grimes grabs him up, flings him into the yard, and mercilessly whips the old man. Aunt Sally and Vyry hear Tom’s screams and run out to see what’s happening. While Tom lay “huddled and trembling,” Grimes kicks the old man, then pulls out his pistol and shoots him dead. He then walks to the stable to get the master’s horses.

Flies circle Old Tom’s corpse. Vyry runs toward the body and tries to fan the flies away from him. She notices that his “cotton shirt [is] sticking in shreds to a tortured pulp of flesh” (89). Aunt Sally orders her away from the body before Vyry gets into similar trouble. She then takes Vyry back to the kitchen and begins praying, in whispers, wondering when God will send Moses. The slaves later wash Tom’s body, dress him in a suit, and lay him on a board. The next evening, they place his body in a pine coffin that they constructed and have a funeral for him. Brother Ezekiel leads them in song while they lower the coffin into a freshly dug grave, sprinkle it with lime, and cover it again with Georgia clay. Then darkness comes, and the day is done.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Marse John’s dinner party”

Vyry knows that when she goes into the kitchen and hears Aunt Sally singing loudly, it’s a sign that the woman is troubled. When Vyry, Caline, and May Liza warn her to be careful, in case Missy Salina might hear, she angrily tells them to leave her to her singing, indifferent to whether “the white folks” (92) are asleep or to what they might say.

Meanwhile, the house slaves are preparing a big dinner party for Marse John. Guests include state legislators, a Congressman, and other planters from seven counties. Jake’s new lover, Lucy, has been assigned to help with washing the crystal, wine glasses, goblets, and snifters. Missy Salina is always excited for dinner parties. Aunt Sally remarks on how the mistress “[puts] on airs” during these events, taking the opportunity to show off her that she was “from the elite of Savannah” and not a native of the Georgia backwoods to which she had been relegated (93). Salina hopes that her husband’s entry into politics will expand her social prospects.

Some of the dinner guests will remain at Shady Oaks for a week. Missy Salina hopes that the plantation will run smoothly for the duration of their stay. With “so many exhausting things” (94) to do, she will have to rely on Grimes to keep things under control. Her biggest concern is ensuring that she has the right jewelry to match every evening dress.

A month earlier, Aunt Sally was ordered to bake fruit and rum cakes. She was also tasked with cooking various meats; preserving fruits and vegetables; making marmalades; and being prepared, always, to bake for breakfasts. When the guests arrive in their barouches, Vyry watches them from “under the big oak tree” (95). While she, May Liza, and Lucy serve the guests, Vyry hears bits of the party conversation and hears about what she’s missed from the other servants. Everyone is alert to the men’s conversations about “the news and the crops and the weather, their slaves, and the politics of the county, the state, and the nation” (97). Marse John and his friend, Lee, a fellow plantation owner, discuss how their male field hands, including Jake, have “running of the reins” (98). Marse John notes that he was planning to sell Jake and cannot now, due to this new problem.

Sam enters the room, handsome and smiling “in his butler’s uniform,” and announces that “[d]inner is served” (99). The dinner talk continues to revolve around politics. Most of the legislators in the Georgia House of Representatives are fellow inheritors of privilege and wealth. Some studied at Ivy League universities. Others are scholars and magistrates on the State Supreme Court, while others are captains of industry or “descendants of pioneer families in Georgia” (99), like Marse John. All of them are contemptuous of the abolitionists whom they believe are “trying to make a different Constitution out of the document written by Jefferson and Hamilton and amended by our governing bodies” (100). They treasure the Southern way of life—agrarian and Greco-Roman in its attention to “divisions of mankind into servile and genteel races” (100). They are confident, however, that Congressmen Stephens and Toombs will make these men’s values clear to those in Washington.

One of the planters, a man named Crenshaw, talks about how the latest version of the Missouri Compromise underscores increasing abolitionism in the North and a commitment to preventing slavery in the territories. Crenshaw concludes that it’ll be imperative to restrict the movements and activities of all black people—slave and free. There are also reports of foiled slave revolts in South Carolina, Virginia, and even Georgia. Crenshaw offers an anecdote about “two slave cooks who [were] arrested for poisoning three in their master’s families” (101).

Though Missy Salina was out of earshot during this conversation, busy with the other ladies, she later advises her husband to sell Sally, both because the cook has become “too temperamental” and “nearly ruined” the patty shells by over-salting them (101). Marse John, thinking of Crenshaw’s earlier anecdote, doesn’t respond, but quietly agrees.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Cook in the Big House”

In the early spring of 1851, Lee County’s High Sheriff discovers a plot for a slave insurrection. Brother Zeke tells his congregation at Rising Glory Church that he thinks it was a false rumor—he never heard anything about a plot. Nevertheless, white people in the area often complain about their slaves being “unusually hard to manage” and worry about the appearance of “strange whites” interacting with free blacks (102).

Missy Salina doesn’t understand why any slave would revolt, given how well-treated she thinks they are. After all, their masters feed and clothe them, look after them in sickness, and teach them the tenets of Christianity. The planters decide to take immediate action: find and punish the plotters in a way that would discourage any other slave from insurrection; impose curfews “and all of the Black Code” (104) to ensure proper control of slaves; and force all abolitionists to leave Georgia. Free blacks, too, would have to leave the state or face the possibility of having their freedom papers revoked, thereby forcing them back into slavery. Finally, planters would rely on obedient slaves to watch the others and relay information back to them about possible insurrection.

The two black women who were accused of poisoning their master and his mother “were convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged” (105). White families lived in a state of anxiety, while slaves lived in fear. Grimes asked his boss to buy three more bloodhounds for the estate, and Marse John agreed.

Meanwhile, Missy Salina and Marse John completed their plans to sell Aunt Sally, who would go on an auction block in New Orleans. On the morning of her departure, a wagon arrives to take her first to Savannah; she’ll sail from there to New Orleans. Sally gathers her few belongings in a bundle that she makes from one of her aprons. She cries; Vyry is too shocked to cry. Aunt Sally hugs and kisses her, telling Vyry that they’ll never meet again “in this here sinful world,” but will reunite somewhere “on the other side where [there’s] no more auction block” (106). She then clutches her sons, Sam and Big Boy, in her arms. Vyry tries to go with Aunt Sally until Salina slaps her down and knocks her out. When Vyry awakens, Sally is gone.

Aunt Sally’s replacements prove to be unsuccessful. Either they’re poor cooks, too sickly to work, or they run away. Having studied with Sally for seven years, Vyry takes over the kitchen. One morning, Missy Salina tasks Vyry with taking food out to the hired blacksmith in the stables; though, she resents having to feed the man, who is black, lunch and insists that Vyry give him only leftovers. Vyry obeys.

When the blacksmith, Randall Ware, first sees Vyry, he’s struck by her nearly-white appearance. He tells her that he nearly mistook her for “the young Missus”—Lillian (110). Randall asks for her name; Vyry lies and says that she doesn’t have one. Randall takes this as a sign that she thinks she’s too good for him. He “[jingles] the coins in his pocket” (110) and offers that he could buy her freedom in exchange for her hand in marriage. This prospect tempts Vyry. She advises Randall to discuss the matter with Marse John. Until then, she insists on “getting back to [her] cooking” (110).

Chapter 8 Summary: “Randall Ware”

Randall Ware was born free. He registered himself in Lee County, Georgia as a blacksmith. He brought with him a sack of gold—enough to pay for his registration, to buy a tract of land, and to pay taxes. The highest tax, which increases greatly each year, is the fee for maintaining his freedom. His status, however, is not much different from that of an indentured servant; for, he is attached to his white guardian, the Quaker Randall Wheelwright, who convinced Ware to move to Georgia and “willed this young black friend much of his property” (111).

Ware believed that he had all that he needed, until he met Vyry and experienced, for the first time, overpowering desire. Vyry is 15 at this time. Ware knows that her resemblance to Lillian and Marse John is “no little coincidence” (115). This fact, coupled with her being the cook for the Big House, means that Marse John might be unwilling to sell her. However, according to Georgia law, “a mulatto” can “marry a free man with her master’s consent” (115). Ware assures himself that he’ll succeed in buying her. After all, his money had always gotten him anything he wanted.

Vyry, meanwhile, cannot stop thinking about freedom, of learning to read and count. She has dreams about opening a door that leads to freedom. In the dream, a black man stands beside the door, tempting her with the “golden key” (117) that will supposedly open it, but it never does. Vyry believes that, even if Marse John agreed to free her, Missy Salina would talk him out of it, given her hatred for the prospect of free black people. Then, Vyry worries that some misfortune could befall Ware before he could free her. She learns that Ware has been lecturing some of the field hands, particularly Sam and Big Boy, on the ways in which they can become free, alerting Salina to the possible trouble Ware could cause. One day, Missy Salina questions Vyry about whether she has heard any sign of trouble among the slaves. Vyry assures her mistress that she hasn’t, but would let her know if she does.

Chapters 5-8 Analysis

In these four chapters, Walker shows how slaves and slave owners live very disparate lives and have different perceptions of slavery, despite the proximity in which they live. These differences are rooted in notions of racial hierarchy and in Southern whites’ determination to preserve a way of life in which they enjoy great comforts.

Walker explores how desperate and dangerous the slaves’ lives are within the plantation system, culminating in Old Tom’s gruesome death—a scene that, with its graphic violence, underscores the extent to which white people, even non-slaveholders, could take black lives with impunity. Earlier in the book, Old Tom objected to an abolitionist’s talk about freedom, accepting his condition as natural and too deeply ingrained to change. The circumstances of his death reveal the slave owners’ promise that obedience will ensure a slave’s safety is a lie.

Vyry becomes keenly aware of the precariousness of survival early in life, after experiencing cruelty at the hands of Missy Salina. She becomes warier of her safety and desperate to escape slavery after witnessing Old Tom’s death. If even an old and frail man cannot be granted some mercy, then no slave could be certain of survival.

To further illustrate the bifurcation between the lives of slaves and masters, Walker uses the event of Marse John’s dinner party to juxtapose Missy Salina’s frivolous concerns about matching jewelry with her gowns, which she considers hard work, with Sally’s arduous labors in the kitchen to prepare for the meals. The descriptions provide evidence of how dependent the planter class was on its slaves, both to ensure that hospitality that became known as “Southern hospitality” and to maintain the codes of their neo-feudal system. One aspect of this system were prescribed gender roles. For example, Missy Salina’s life of lassitude, which is a key facet of supposedly proper Southern femininity, would not exist without the slave system. It is the first thing, too, that disintegrates after Emancipation.

Missy Salina thoroughly believes in the supposed inferiority of black people and the unquestioned dominance of whites. She thinks that black people are too feeble-minded, indolent, and childlike to care for themselves, which is why she cannot fathom why they would want to leave the plantation when they are, in her view, so well cared for. Salina’s ideas are not specific to the South, or even to the United States. Instead, they have roots in scientific racism, which promoted such hypotheses as Africans having smaller skulls than Europeans. These notions were then used as indicators of black people’s inferior intelligence. Proponents of such ideas included French ethnologist Arthur de Gobineau and zoologist Georges Cuvier. They are rooted, too, in the beliefs of some Enlightenment thinkers, including David Hume and Immanuel Kant, who wrote about the supposed inferiority of African peoples.

Black people, too, were prone to internalizing such ideas of racial inferiority. The narrative tells the reader that the first thing that Randall Ware notices about Vyry is not her own unique beauty or charm, but her strong resemblance to her sister, Lillian. He is struck by the whiteness of Vyry’s skin, her blonde hair, and her blue eyes. He decides, without knowing her, that he must have her. He entices her with his money, promising that he can use it to buy her freedom. Just as white men buy themselves black women, both for pleasure and to ensure a strong slave population on their farms, Ware decides that he should have a nearly-white wife. It’s never clear how much of his desire is for the person Vyry is versus what she represents in his imagination: proof that his money can buy him a lifestyle, and a wife, akin to those of a white man.

While Ware senses that his money gives him complete control over his fate, Vyry worries that she has no control over her own. Not only is her life tightly restricted and surveilled by Missy Salina, she also feels compelled to marry Ware, whom she does not love, because he seems to be her likeliest path to freedom. Unlike the male slaves on the plantation, Vyry’s status as a woman renders her unable to earn her freedom by offering her services to the Union Army. This detail reveals yet another way in which both a black woman’s race and gender made it more difficult to escape from bondage.