Libertie

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Complexities of Freedom and Enslavement

Freedom and enslavement are such important themes in the novel that the protagonist takes her name from them. Libertie (a variation on “liberty”) is a young African American girl who is born free during a time when slavery still exists in the United States. She must reckon with the fact that not everyone is so lucky when escaped slaves arrive at her mother’s medical practice as they make their way to freedom. Ben Daisy is unconscious in a coffin as he travels north, likening his journey to freedom and away from enslavement to a resurrection. To the young girl watching, becoming free is essentially a miracle that can breathe new life into a person. Freedom is not only a state of liberation but passage into a new life.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between those who are born free and those who escape enslavement. Men like Ben Daisy struggle to adjust to their lives as free men. Decades of enslavement and the cruel and vicious treatment their former owners inflicted on them have traumatized them. They cannot comprehend the idea of freedom—an idea that Libertie almost takes for granted—and don’t know what to do with it. Ben’s freedom, for example, quickly spirals into self-destructive alcoholism—itself probably an attempt to “free” himself from painful memories. Louisa and Experience’s reluctance to sing old slave songs further illustrates the psychological baggage former slaves carry. To escaped slaves, freedom is not a simple, joyous concept; the trauma of enslavement colors their ability to enjoy their freedom.

Freedom is therefore also an abstract concept. Metaphorical freedom is just as important as physical freedom, meaning that characters must achieve both figurative and literal freedom to achieve happiness. Libertie may be born free, but she is enslaved by her mother’s expectations and constrained by the way society views her race and gender. Other characters internalize social attitudes to such an extent that it limits their ability to even think freely; Emmanuel, for instance, tries to replicate American patriarchy and white supremacy in Haiti because he can’t conceive of freedom outside the hierarchical US context. The African American experience in 19th-century America means that freedom is not just a legal status; enslavement comes in many forms and can trap African Americans in traumatic fashion.

Personal Identity and the Weight of Expectations

Many characters in Libertie must deal with the weight of expectations others place upon them. Cathy is one of the primary practitioners of this behavior. To her, Libertie is not just a daughter, but a means by which she can achieve her own ambitions and honor the memory of her dead husband. She wants Libertie to become a doctor and follow in her footsteps, hoping that they will eventually work together as “Dr. Sampson and Daughter.” Even the name of the practice prioritizes Cathy’s title over her daughter’s interests. Cathy never pauses to consider what her daughter wants and needs, so Libertie’s life becomes a confusing mess as she tries to balance the weight of her mother’s expectations with her own desires.

Emmanuel seems to offer Libertie an escape from her mother’s expectations. After she has failed college, Libertie sees Emmanuel as a way to reorientate her life and give her existence purpose. She rejects her mother’s expectations by marrying Emmanuel but only succeeds in burdening herself with her husband’s expectations. In effect, she swaps one prison for another. They travel to Haiti, and Emmanuel outlines exactly what he expects from his wife. None of his expectations correlate with Libertie’s desires. This parallels the way Emmanuel burdens Haiti itself with his expectations and his ambitions to turn the country into something new. He never asks the local Haitians what they want or need; instead, he projects his own expectations onto the local people that he supposedly wants to help.

Libertie’s escape from other people’s expectations comes in an ironic fashion. After she gives birth, she begins to realize the power she has over her children. She invests them with her own hopes and dreams but acknowledges that they will have to make a life for themselves. She understands the way her mother and Emmanuel have acted but hopes that she will be different. Only when Libertie is in a position to place her own expectations on others does she begin to understand the way these expectations work, as well as how she can free both herself and her children from them.

The Difficulty of Overcoming Vicious Cycles

A key theme in the lives of the novel’s unhappy characters is the way in which they repeat the same mistakes. They find themselves caught in vicious cycles that seem impossible to break, becoming trapped and even more miserable. For much of the story, Libertie exemplifies this behavior. She allows herself to become a vessel for her mother’s ambitions even though it makes her unhappy, and then she does the same with Emmanuel. Her narration indicates that she is aware of this behavior, but she convinces herself that each new time will be different. Similarly, Ben Daisy drinks, hating himself for doing so but unable to stop, while Cathy hates that she is angry at her daughter but cannot let go of her plans for her. These vicious emotional cycles become prisons for the characters, exacerbating their misery while they struggle to break free.

Emmanuel’s work in Haiti demonstrates that these vicious cycles also exist on an institutional level. African Americans such as the Chase family escape slavery and travel to Haiti in the hope that they can build a new and better country. Emmanuel envisions Haiti as a utopia for African Americans: a country free of racism that is ruled fairly by Black people. However, his efforts deny equality to women and disregard those with darker skin. His dismissive attitude toward his father’s sexual abuse especially shows that he is recreating the same old, broken power dynamics.

Libertie’s children offer hope that both the personal and societal cycles can be broken. Just like Emmanuel and Ella’s mother, she gives birth to twins. However, she does not want to replicate the problems her children’s father and aunt faced growing up. She resolves to treat her own children equally and ensure that one does not grow up to resent the other. Likewise, she understands the temptation to infuse the children with her expectations, but after witnessing her mother’s mistakes firsthand, she refuses to do so. She returns to her mother on her own terms and escapes Emmanuel’s vicious cycles, though she encourages him to join her if he can also acknowledge and break free of his harmful behavioral patterns.