'Day Of Tears' By Julius Lester: Slavery

Slavery. A time in history that is not praised, a regretful period of time. In the novel Day of Tears by Julius Lester, Emma shows the readers her emotions and how she is feeling. She also gives the reader a couple of different traits that can be identified through the novel. In a time of slavery where a master has a gambling problem forcing him to sell his slaves to make up some money due to the debt that he brought unto himself. The master’s daughters Sarah and Frances have two different opinions on slavery. Frances a girl who thinks slavery is okay and believes that it should continue, and Sarah a girl who thinks slavery is absolutely wrong. In this novel, the reader can see the different viewpoints coming from all sorts of characters whether

The author uses Emma as a character to show how cruel the time of slavery was and to show how some slaves chose to escape slavery. Overall the author created Emma to be a compassionate, fearful, and courageous woman. For starters, In the novel, Emma is seen as a compassionate young woman. The reader can infer this by seeing how she treats her former slave owner’s daughters and how she overall treats people. One instance the reader can notice Emma’s compassion towards people was when Emma just found out that she is going to be sold to another slave owner. Even though her father was promised by his mater that she wouldn’t be sold. Sarah was really upset because she doesn’t want to see Emma go and leave her. An example from the novel is on page 86, “Emma puts her arms around Sarah and holds her tightly, blinking her eyes rapidly to hold back her own tears.”. Emma is such a caring person that even though Emma is afraid of what is going to happen to her, she still cares for Sarah and tries to comfort her. She chose to put Sarah before her own needs and attempt to make Sarah feel better by calming

Emma shows her bravery by being sold to another slave owner and escaping her new slave owner’s plantation. Emma was just sold to another slave owner and she was trying to talk to her father and tell him that she will be strong. The reader can see Emma being brave in the novel on page 94, “Tell Mama I won’t forget nothing she taught me. Tell her I’ll be alright. And I’ll be strong, Papa. I’ll be strong!”. It shows that even though Emma might be afraid of what is to come that she has to be brave. It also shows that even when she encountered something so tragic in her life that she knew she had to put a brave face on. As they are trying to escape from the plantation it is a rainy night and they are worried about what could happen. Another instance in the novel the reader can recognize is when they were trying to escape the plantation on page 145 “We all scared. We’re out here cold and wet and tired with no idea of where we’re going.”. The reader can infer this by seeing where it shows how even in a miserable time Emma had to be brave so she could escape and be free. This relates to real life because there are times when people face hardships that are very difficult to face and