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The Controversies Of Slavery In Song Yet Sung By James Mcbride

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Throughout history, the conversation of freedom is as a difficult, complex aspiration that most people have. Although their ideas of freedom may differ the intention and significance are still there. James McBride is the author of the modest and well-written novel, Song Yet Sung. Author James McBride wrote Song Yet Sung to express the controversies of slavery. McBride created definitive characters that viewed the world in gray rather than black and white. He explained a delicate topic in many points of view. He gave more insight than most authors do when creating a book about the harsh topic of slavery. Why is slavery real and how can it go away? In James McBride’s novel, Song Yet Sung, he depicts a slave’s journey to freedom and the suffering …show more content…

After, what she thought was a ghost, scares Liz, she falls asleep by the river. The noises surrounding her in the darkness terrify her. McBride states, “In her sleep she sounded the forest, and in sounding the forest, in taking its pulse, she felt its fears, its cries for mercy, felt its harboring for its terrible future when it would one day be gone and in its place would be concrete and mortar, and she knew then, if she had ever been uncertain about it before, that the old woman with no name was right... And she had to keep running. And she had to keep running. Keep living. Until the land, or God, told her why.” (McBride???). The history of slavery is neither black nor white, but gray. James McBride demonstrates this in his novel. Liz has the ability to view things differently to create a deeper meaning for things that anyone else would not think twice about. Her ability shows the deeper level hardships that slaves went through. Her ability also correlates to the struggles that people go through in today’s society. In a document written about James McBride, the author writes about McBride’s personal information, his career, his awards, his books, and his sidelights. The author also notes other resources and what they have said about McBride. The author writes, “Kerry Skemp...‘was struck by the correlation between the complicity of Song Yet Sung white characters in the existence of slavery and our modern day complicity in a society based on the exploitation of low-wage laborers.’... ‘shows that when it comes to the history of slavery, nothing is entirely black or white’... He may have set his novel in the 1850s, but he is writing about the hurdles we yet face,’ adding that he has ‘the ability to captivate, compel and challenge those of us still working to shape those tomorrows.’”(“James McBride” 2). Kerry Skemp explains how the

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