Chains

From the moment Curzon is introduced on the page, his character brings life and energy into the story. With his signature red cap and gold earring, he stands out in a sea of plain, colonial scenery. His presence as a friend to Isabel quickly turns to educator and enlightener. He gently yet firmly rebuffs her insistent demands for liberation and teaches her about the complexities of their situation. He gives her food and helps with her chores, but more importantly, he gains her an audience with Colonel Regan. Though Regan does not fulfill his promise to help Isabel, the incident proves to teach her and embolden her for future conflict. She does not understand Curzon’s allegiance to the rebels, but she does understand the promise of freedom he has been given in exchange for his service. Curzon is a noble and kind character whose level-headedness and calm persona serve as a foil for Isabel’s passionate fury. In rescuing her from the scaffold, her face aflame and her body racked with fever, Curzon shows he is a benevolent and kind-hearted friend. Curzon becomes the closest person to a family Isabel has in New York.

Isabel returns his kindness four-fold in caring for him in the prison. Despite the promise of victory and freedom, Curzon finds himself imprisoned by the British after their defeat in battle. It is now he who is sick, grief-stricken, and in need of care. He suffers from the pestilence running hot through the overcrowded prison but also languishes with the trauma of what he experienced on the battlefield. Isabel nurses him back to health with food scraps from the Locktons’ table and with a listening ear. Curzon has taught her much about measured thinking, but in the end, he will need her fearless bravery to help him escape the perils of the prison: “Twas he who had been my steadfast friend since the day they brought me here,” Isabel says, “I couldn't. No—not couldn't. I shouldn't. But I had to. I had a debt to pay” (292). Curzon offers Isabel a hand of friendship and in return, he gains his life. The end of the novel is not the end of the story but only the beginning of the journey for these two friends now both fugitives on the run.

Though Ruth speaks infrequently and is physically absent for half the narrative, her presence is a dominating force in the story. Once she is sold away, her memory inhabits every part of Isabel’s life as Isabel is wracked with guilt for not protecting her from Madam Lockton. Ruth’s innocence and vulnerability highlight the darkness all around her; enslaving any human is already inhumane, but Madam then fetters Ruth, makes her a set piece in the house for guests to stare at, and beats the defenseless child in the throes of a violent epileptic seizure. The novel’s action is largely driven by unbalanced power dynamics, and it is in this context that Ruth is a litmus test for Madam’s character; the way a person treats others less powerful than themselves is revealing, and Madam treats the most vulnerable person, Ruth, with the most barbarity.

Ruth is Isabel’s last remaining family member and her only reason for going on living. In her darkest days, Isabel is compelled to persevere when she ponders how to escape to find her sister. The cornsilk doll is a symbol of both pain and hope for Isabel. It is simple and sweet, just like Ruth, and its presence is a reminder of why Isabel must live to fight. When she loses the doll to the fire, she reaches a new low and thinks, “All I had lost in the confusion was Ruth’s doll. All I had lost was everything” (197). Ruth is indeed everything to Isabel, representing both her past and her future. Isabel is dejected when her mother’s seeds do not grow. She realizes that she and Ruth are also seeds; sown by a caring mother who planted her hope in her progeny and a future of freedom, they are still growing, and Ruth must be found and protected like a delicate bloom on a beautiful flower. 

Anne Lockton—who forces Isabel to call her “Madam”—is introduced as she is finalizing a deal to purchase two human beings. This moment announces the character’s true nature. Madam examines the girls as if they are livestock and leaves no doubt her future treatment of them will follow suit. Madam Lockton cares only for herself. She spends her days ordering others around, smashing crockery on the wall, and hurling insults at anyone in her path. She brings a chaotic and tense mood to the home, and her gaudy, expensive outfits highlight her selfish rapacity.

Isabel recognizes early that this master is not like her previous one, and while Isabel can endure the cruelty to herself, she cannot sit idly by and watch Madam abuse Ruth. Isabel takes the beatings meant for Ruth and envisions inflicting bodily harm on the perpetrator: “Everybody carried a little evil in them, Momma once told me. Madam Lockton had more than her share. The poison had eaten holes through her soul and made room for vermin to nest inside her” (280). As Isabel’s contempt increases, so does Madam’s persecution of the girls—culminating in Madam selling Ruth away and vengefully branding Isabel’s flesh.

For a time after the branding, Isabel allows Madam to defeat her. She is crushed in body, mind, and spirit. She feels she has no hope of escape from Madam’s venom and surrenders herself to despair: “Like Madam had carved her letters into my soul, burned the mark into my skin” (246). While Madam, too, has marks left on her from her husband, she directs all her pain onto everyone living under her roof. As the narrative progresses, she becomes so deceitful and violent that she begins to symbolize the system of slavery itself. She is corrupt, like the system in which she lives. While Isabel sometimes desires to injure Madam, it is in Isabel’s resistance to that impulse that she can defeat the chief villain of the narrative.

Isabel comes to realize that Madam’s only real power is her desire to control those she enslaves, chiefly Isabel. This may partly be Madam’s maladaptive response to a world where women have no voice, but even if so, the response has become more sadistic than retaliatory: “She was set on keeping [Isabel’s] arms and legs dancing to her tune and my soul bound in her chains” (269). In refusing to comply with Madam’s orders, Isabel robs her of her power and reduces her to a childish fit, smashing dishes and wildly swinging a riding crop. Madam completely loses control of Isabel and, in a last-ditch effort to demonstrate authority, locks her in a rickety potato bin. Madam’s final fate is unknown at the end of the first book in the series, yet it is clear Isabel has won this battle. In the end, Madam Lockton’s fatal flaw was not that of anger or hatred, but of underestimating the power, intelligence, and courage of the young woman living in her home.