Libertie

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Pages 6-17 Summary

In 1860, an 11-year-old African American girl named Libertie Sampson sees her mother “raise a man from the dead” (6). Libertie’s mother Cathy is an African American doctor in New York City. The man she “raises from the dead” arrives on a cart; a well-dressed woman and her son urgently carry the man’s coffin into the doctor’s office, where Cathy complains that they are late. They open the coffin, and Libertie stares at an African American man curled up inside. Cathy inserts grains into the man’s mouth and then slaps him on the back. The man wakes up, spluttering. The woman who brought the coffin, Elizabeth, explains that the revived man, Ben, and his sister are escaped slaves they are helping toward freedom. When Ben became unruly, they placed him in the coffin and knocked him unconscious with laudanum.

Ben stays at Cathy’s house. As he sleeps, Libertie listens to the conversation between Cathy and Elizabeth. The two women were childhood friends. Elizabeth married a Haitian man named Pierre, and they run a store in Philadelphia. Elizabeth tells Libertie stories from her school days with Cathy and worries about Libertie having inherited her father’s dark skin. Ben stirs in his sleep and mumbles the name Daisy. Elizabeth and Cathy discuss their plan to move him to safety along the Underground Railroad.

Libertie is named after her father’s dream of freedom. Her father Robert was an escaped slave who died before Libertie was born. Libertie and Cathy visit his grave every Sunday. Cathy’s young sister is also buried nearby. Lenore, who works as a nurse for Cathy, once explained to Libertie that the sister died of pneumonia: White doctors refused to treat her, so Cathy promised herself that she would become a doctor to save African American patients. Libertie wonders whether her father is now enjoying the freedom he sought his entire life.

Libertie wakes early the next day and inspects the recovering Mr. Ben. He stirs, and they talk until Cathy wakes. Libertie watches her mother slip into her familiar doctor routine, knowing she wants Libertie to follow in her footsteps.

The next morning, the coffin is loaded back on the cart. Cathy seems worried as she tells Elizabeth to travel safely. Ben watches her leave and talks to Cathy about other African Americans who help slaves to escape; one group was caught and met a grisly end, though Cathy does not want to hear details. Cathy tells him to lay low for a few days before trying to integrate into the community. Ben agrees, but he seems resentful of the successful, wealthy life Cathy has built for herself as a doctor. Libertie struggles to understand this resentment. Cathy tells Libertie to never reveal where Ben came from, nor the help they’ve offered him. Lenore reiterates the danger, worried that a young girl like Libertie does not understand the true extent of the threat.

Part 1, Pages 18-29 Summary

Ben spends the day asking many questions Cathy quickly learns to ignore. Eventually, Libertie takes Ben on a tour of their small African American town to put an end to his curiosity. Libertie’s family lives on the outskirts of town in an old property that was once a successful pig farm belonging to Cathy’s father. Libertie is confused by Ben, who seems to dislike her mother. Ben explains that people who have been slaves have been taught that African Americans cannot succeed in society. Libertie shows Ben the stores, the church, and the meadow where children play. Ben seems preoccupied with the memory of his lost girlfriend. They return to Cathy’s home, and Ben allows Libertie to hold his hand while they walk.

Dinner takes place in near silence. Libertie clears the plates and returns to the table to find Ben inspecting the local newspaper, which includes a guide to help illiterate people learn to read. One of the sentences to practice is “I must work hard and be good and get me a house and lot” (21). Ben, who has spent his life working hard, questions this definition of freedom. He wonders what Daisy would have thought about this successful African American doctor living in a town of free African Americans. He asks about Cathy’s deceased sister, but Cathy does not want to talk about the matter and politely asks Ben to leave the next day. Libertie makes up the bed for Ben’s final night. She does not know what to say to Ben, so she hugs him.

The next day, Ben leaves for a lodging house. Libertie begins training to become a doctor, starting with the near-feral cats in the barn. Lenore assures her that taking care of the animals will teach her to take care of people. Libertie feeds the cats but is concerned about how quickly they begin depending on her, as their “need [is] monstrous” (23). Cathy encourages her daughter to assume responsibility but also reassigns her to care for the garden rather than the cats. Libertie tends to the carefully cultivated herbs and plants, learning about Cathy’s healing practices. As a homeopath, Cathy believes that “like cures like” (24): Each illness has a corresponding treatment in nature. Libertie studies the list of illnesses and their cures, making sure that all the plants are available in the garden.

As she continues learning medicine, Libertie thinks about Ben. According to the rumors she has heard, Ben has refused to leave for Manhattan as planned. When Ben sees Libertie in town, he smiles weakly at her and they talk. He always addresses her as “Black Gal,” and Libertie cannot help but pity his seemingly broken spirit.

One day, Libertie eats yarrow leaves and suffers from an allergic reaction. Cathy does not panic but concocts a remedy. As Libertie flits in and out of consciousness, she hears her mother and Lenore discuss how much she looks like Cathy’s deceased sister. Libertie realizes with shame that she has made her mother relive her most painful memory.

A week later, after she has recovered, Libertie notices Ben sitting outside and watching children play with a water pump. He constantly mumbles about Daisy, and the local children turn his mumbling into a nickname, “Ben Daisy.” Eventually his sister Hannah arrives, carried in the same coffin as her brother. She is surprised by her brother’s nickname, claiming that Daisy ran away alone and left Ben to mourn. Hannah joins Ben in the lodging house, where many runaway slaves and haunted men stay.

Part 1, Pages 30-43 Summary

The place where Ben stays sells alcohol to the lodgers. The sight of the drunken lodgers shocks Hannah and Elizabeth, but Cathy and Libertie know what to expect. They see Ben drunkenly ramble to another man about Daisy. Hannah interrupts and talks to her belligerent brother before breaking down in tears. She blames Cathy and Elizabeth for allowing people to live in such a state and then drags the reluctant Ben out of the lodging house. In the following days, Cathy resolves to repair the damage she has allowed to happen.

Cathy tests a new medicine made from dried seahorses sent especially to her by a famous African American doctor. Male seahorses are supposedly virtuous and loyal, so Cathy hopes the creatures’ qualities will pass to whoever drinks the new medicine. Once the medicine is made, Cathy writes a letter to Ben Daisy apologizing for allowing him to succumb to alcoholism and inviting him for tea. When Ben arrives, they make small talk until Cathy steers the conversation toward the painful subject of Daisy. She offers to help his pain with the new medicine; Ben agrees. After he leaves, Cathy explains to Libertie that she designed the medicine to help those who are now free from slavery, but whose minds remain oppressed.

Ben takes the medicine but seems unchanged until one day when he is too drunk to take it and vomits “something green and awful-smelling” (35). When he returns the next day, he is obsessed with the ocean. By the next Sunday, Ben Daisy is fresh and clean. His sister weeps joyfully in church, and the entire town is impressed with Cathy’s skills as a doctor.

Other people with drinking problems come to Cathy to be cured. The town chooses Ben to lead the annual Pinkster celebrations. Libertie goes to find him on the day of the festival, and they walk together through the town. However, the celebrations involve cider, and Ben begins to drink. He talks about Daisy again as people cheer his name; he says that they will see Daisy soon enough. Ben continues to say this over the next week as Cathy becomes worried. Even Libertie begins to doubt that her mother has properly cured Ben. On Ben’s request, she prepares flowers for Daisy’s arrival. When she tries to give them to Ben, he sadly tells her that Daisy has betrayed him with another man. Libertie places the flowers in Ben’s hat and then goes to church.

Ben sinks into a deep, weeks-long depression. After one night of heavy drinking, he seems caught by a sudden idea and leaps into the sea. Ben disappears, leaving behind only his hat, still strewn with Libertie’s flowers. Cathy declares her experiment a failure, and the town mourns the loss of Ben Daisy. Rumors spread that the boys who dived into the water after Ben saw him reaching for a beautiful woman. Libertie is deeply affected by Ben’s death. She knows that she will never be a doctor like her mother.

Part 1 Analysis

The opening of Libertie introduces the reader to the world as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old African American girl. To Libertie, Cathy’s expertise as a doctor is essentially magic. She watches as Cathy seemingly revives a man from the dead—an interpretation of events that illustrates the high regard the daughter assigns to her mother’s profession. However, the fact that Libertie views her mother as a miracle worker makes the thought of trying to follow in her footsteps humbling and worrisome. Even at a young age, Libertie is unsure that she has the character needed to provide healthcare. From her perspective, Cathy’s work is so extraordinary that Libertie’s own failure seems inevitable.

Meanwhile, Libertie is experiencing another rude awakening. She was born free, and her mother’s profession means that her family is relatively wealthy. The arrival of Ben Daisy shows Libertie that not everyone of her race is able to enjoy such privileges, and his demise shows her the truly traumatic nature of racism and slavery, which can haunt a person even after they reach freedom. Ben’s death is a tragic counterpoint to Cathy’s brilliance, showing Libertie the challenges that she will inevitably have to confront.

Ben Daisy also provides Libertie with a different definition of freedom. In Libertie, freedom is not just a legal status. Freedom is also a state of mind—one that threatens to linger long after legal liberation is achieved. Ben escapes from the slave states of the South and becomes a free man. However, he is not able to adjust to life as a free person. The psychological scars run too deep, meaning that he is still beholden to the pain he has endured in the past. Ben discovers, for example, that free people are still expected to work. He has only ever experienced work through the lens of slavery, so the idea of returning to hard manual labor reawakens the deep traumas of his past. Likewise, he remains enslaved to the memory of Daisy. He cannot abandon the thought of the woman he loved and lost. Eventually, Ben decides that the only way to resolve this tension in his mind is to kill himself. He drowns, finally liberating himself from the pain of the past. Slavery is so abhorrent, the novel suggests, that the only true freedom for some former slaves is death.

Libertie’s father plays a complicated role in the novel. She inherits his dark skin, and her name reflects his dream of liberty. She is a girl created in her father’s image and named after his ambition, but her father is not present to guide her through the world. Instead, she depends on her mother, who does not have the same skin color or the same belief in radical liberation. As such, Libertie grows up caught between the memory of her father and the reality of her mother. The tension between these two versions of herself will mean that she struggles to find her own identity and finds herself beholden to other people’s expectations. Libertie’s father is an important figure in the novel, but he is defined more by his absence than he is by his presence.