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Polly In Sharon Draper's Copper Sun

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Sharon Draper’s Copper Sun contains several complex characters: Amari, Teenie and Afi - but possibly the one with the most essential change is Polly. Polly begins as a snobby but poor indentured servant, she has the same jobs as slave but feels superior to them. As the plot progresses, Polly begins to learn that the slaves are just ordinary people and whites aren’t superior, but the same. Polly being white helps convey how learning more about a different kind of person or about a new thing can help remove the set stereotype someone may feel.
Draper’s creation of Polly has many functions, and one of the these many instances of character design is how she plays into one of many overarching themes. She helps contrast how two essential slaves were …show more content…

She begins this novel with a severe dislike for even just Africans in general as stated on page 75, “Polly really didn’t like slaves for. As far as she was concerned, they could all get shipped back to Africa or wherever it was they came from.” But as she continues on, and learns more about Amari, Teenie and Tidbit she begins to care for them deeply, to the point of staying by their side in times of hardship where - she could have gone alone and been much much safer, also to defending them at the time she shot Clay. This just goes to show how learning more about reletivly unknown people or things can help change the overall outlook on them.
Indentured servant vs. Slave, which one would be preferrable? In the days of the slave world an indentured servant was definetly the preferred choice even. But they are almost the same thing why would they be different? Because slaves are black savages and indentured servants are civilized white people even when doing the same jobs Polly felt somehow superior to the Slaves like Amari and Tennie. Draper’s use of Polly is to convey the racial difference between white lower class citizens and black slaves, two of basically the same

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Don’t get your hands dirty by dealin’ with darkies” (78). Hence, Polly sees the slaves as below her and is appalled when she is expected to live with them (91). Through her actions, Polly demonstrates that she is jealous of the slaves because of their ability to find work and does not realize that the slaves do not choose to work, but are forced to work. Polly wonders, “who could compete with someone who worked for free” (75) and thinks that the slaves “ought to be grateful” because they were saved from savagery in the jungle (76). This leads Polly to see herself as more intelligent than the slaves, though in the later half of the

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