The definition of the word "identity" is "who someone is, the name of a person, the qualities, beliefs, etc., that make a particular person or group different from others". In the novel The Book of
Negroes, author Lawrence Hill explores one woman’s fight to keep her identity. Aminata Diallo, the protagonist, sits down as a sixty-seven year old woman in London, England to write down the story of her life in her own voice from her own perspective. She tells of how she is stolen from her home in
Central Africa at the tender age of ten years old, thrown onto a ship for three months, and sold into a society where she is not even seen as a human being. Aminata's is a story of abuse, struggle, and courage. The conflicts that Aminata faces, the characterization
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Appleby takes all of Aminata’s beautiful clothes and cloths that she has collected during her few years on the plantation, throws them into a fire as “niggers [do not] dress grand” (176). He expects Aminata to be quiet and invisible attempts to rob her of her dignity and her right to chose what kind of woman she becomes. The true nature of his character is revealed when he
Taylor 3 takes her into the house and rapes her. “He [owns her] labour, but now he [is] bursting to own all of
[her]” and the young Aminata cannot defend herself or stop him (Hill 161). Appleby is determined to take everything from Aminata untilshe is nothing but an empty soul who works for him. It’s not enough for him just to own her body, he needs to own her identity.
After being taken from her home in Bayo, Aminata finds herself in several hostile settings where never feels she belongs. She lives in South Carolina, New York, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone and
London, but she never again feels at home. Aminata does not get the opportunity to develop relationships with people like herself. Her first time in town since arriving in South Carolina, Aminata is disoriented and overwhelmed by how many people are around her. “In [her] homeland, the towns