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Slavery: Chains By Laurie Halse Anderson

173 Words1 Pages
In Chains, Anderson related her novel to slavery and the audience gets a glimpse of how slaves were treated, more or less. In chapter 22, Isabel is punished and not only by madam but also different people in the community. “I moved, not by my own devices. My toes dragged in the dirt. They tried to pull my arms from my body, ripping the arms off a cloth doll. They dragged me from one place to a second place.” (pg141). In this depiction you see that Isabel is vulnerable and she cannot do anything to stop the punishment. Further the punishment does not stop there and it continues for about 2 days because she was left there. Although this could have occurred more than once during slavery, I do not think that students in fifth grade should be exposed
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Chains is a work of historical fiction. While Isabel and Ruth are fictional characters, their situation is realistic. They were both child slaves and child slaves were sold to families and had to work extremely hard. During the Revolutionary War, many slaves ran away in hope to find their family and start a new life. The battles depicted in the book are real.

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Isabel is a thirteen-year-old African-American slave working under Madam Lockton, a dirty loyalist, in the novel Chains. Throughout Chains, Isabel changes from an intimated and gloomy young girl to a confident and proud young woman. Many events all through the book help shape Isabel’s character, but a few things were very important to Isabel’s development. Those things are reading Common Sense, realizing that Madam cannot chain her soul, and discovering that Ruth had been “sold”. Before reading the pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Isabel kept thinking that she would never have a shot at gaining her freedom.

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Historical Fiction Essay "A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth." – Andre Dubus, from Movable Meditations. The story Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson takes place in New York during the year 1777 where the main character, Isabel, an African-American slave is fighting for her and her younger sisters freedom during the American Revolutionary War. The theme developed throughout Chains is perseverance and courage. In Chains the protagonist is Isabel, a thirteen year old girl, who was enslaved in Rhode Island.

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