Throughout time, people have had to go through hardships, or face adversity. How they handle that adversity is a great measure of their character. Some people give up and lose when faced with a little bit of difficulty. Others, however, use the adversity to motivate them to become a better person who uplifts others under a common cause. In the “Underground Railroad”, by Colson Whitehead, Elijah Lander is a person who stands strong in the face of adversity, motivating others to push through it with him to become stronger. Elijah Lander is an essential character within the novel “Underground Railroad” who symbolizes what every escaped African American at this time period yearned to achieve, which alleviates the previous pains undergone by their escape.
Elijah Lander is an African American who, compared to the majority of his kind at the time, had to go through little to no hardships. He was born into a family that was of mixed race. His father was a rich white lawyer who was openly married to a colored woman. While it caused strife within his parent’s social lives, there were no other noticeable consequences for their family. “They suffered rebukes of their circle and in midnight whispers characterized their offspring as the union of an African goddess and a pale mortal. A Demigod”(254). The African Americans characterized him as a demigod, showing their true awe and respect of the man. In the South, such a marriage would have been met with discrimination and brutality. He was