Summary Of Roots: The Saga Of An American Family By Alex Haley

Before we begin to discuss the complexities of what American literature is, we must talk about what America truly is, "The land of the free and the home of the brave", but it is also the home of the captive and disadvantaged. Though the cruel act of kidnapping bodies and forcing them to work on fields for over two hundred years is most definitely a thing of the past, slavery defines America in more ways than we may think. Though today, America no longer practices slavery, its message is still very clear. The message of hate and injustice is a message still carried out today in many ways. Throughout the course of history, we observe how diverse America has become and how this diversity has often led to turmoil and frequent injustice in society.

The story begins with Haley’s great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Kunte Kinte. Kunte was the very first of Alex Haley’s family to be sold into slavery straight from the shores of Africa. The novel starts by describing Kunte’s life in Africa to his kidnapping and then to his life in America. The novel ends with Haley’s great-great-grandfather, Tom Murry. Although there has been some controversy over the truth in the events in the novel, this is one of the very few accounts of actual slave life throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In Roots: The Saga of an American Family, the family experiences many of the hardships that countless amounts of slaves face during this time including various forms of violence, which included abuse and rape and also the heartache of the separation of family. At a certain point in the novel, Kunte runs away from his slave master. He is quickly captured and returned, but as punishment, he has foot chopped off with an ax,“...mingled with his agony was the smell of something like tar. He had thought he knew all about suffering before, but this [the pain from his foot] was worse” (Haley.50.2). Kunte was never able to walk properly again after the incident, but this type of mutilation was frequent with slaves in America. The belief was that for some slaves you should break them down just enough so that they would not have the spirit and/or the literal ability to retaliate. While having gained so much success from writing Roots, Alex Haley then decided to write a detailed novel of a member his father’s side of the family, his grandmother in Queen. Queen Jackson, Haley’s grandmother was a mixed-race slave who often felt alone and alienated at times because her mother was a slave and her father was a wealthy white man who already had a family of his own. Because