Name: Oni

April 3, 2017

 

In this reading you encountered Isabel caught between two worlds– one as a spy working for Colonel Regan, with Curzon as her aid, and the other as an enslaved girl in a Loyalist household, toiling for the cruel Locktons. Neither world seems to give her and solace; she longs for one thing– freedom for herself and for her sister.

 

In the Lockton household, Isabel is privy to secret meetings between Elihu Lockton, Goldbuttons, and the Mayor of New York. She can do this because, she claims:

 

“I am a bookcase, I thought. I am a piece of furniture, not a girl who will remember every word spoken in this room,” (Anderson, 89.)

 

What does this mean? Critically analyze this passage in the space below.

 

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A bookcase is an object, an inanimate object. There is nothing human about it. The bookcase is a symbol. It means that although it may seem that it is inanimate, it holds knowledge, Some of that knowledge can be dangerous. In the right hands it can be used for the greater good. This is also a form of resistance. Slaves didn’t need to physically run away or fight back in order to resist. Many did it in different ways like singing or by retaining information that they heard. Isabell was treated as if she was an object with no rights. Often she was dehumanized and disempowered but she has finally realized that resistance comes in many forms.