Jubilee (novel)

Infobox Book
name = Jubilee


image_caption = Cover of 1966 Houghton Mifflin version of Jubilee. Cover art by William Hofmann.
author = Margaret Walker
country = United States
language = English
genre = Historical novel
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
release_date = 1966
media_type = Print (Hardcover
pages = 497 pages

"Jubilee" (1966) is a critically acclaimed historical novel written by Margaret Walker, which focuses on the story of a biracial slave during the American Civil War. It is set in Georgia and later in various parts of Alabama in the mid-1800s before, during, and after the Civil War.

Plot summary

The novel begins with the death of a slave, Sis Hetta. Hetta was the mother of many of her master’s children, who all became his slaves. The plotline follows the life of Hetta’s youngest daughter, Vyry.

After the death of her mother, Vyry is put to work in the big house as Miss Lillian’s personal servant. Because Liilian is the daughter of the master as well, Vyry and she are technically half sisters and a hold striking resemblance to each other. However it is extremely frowned upon when this issue is brought up. She has a difficult time adjusting and often makes mistakes and is harshly punished by Big Missy, the wife of Master "Marse" John Dutton. She learns quickly to obey and learns skills from Aunt Sally, another slave, who acts as Vyry’s mother. Vyry has a very difficult and traumatizing childhood. As a young girl, she experiences the deaths of many slaves close to her, attends a public execution, and sees another slave branded. Aunt Sally is sold and Vyry becomes the cook of the household at a young age.

Vyry meets a free black man named Randall Ware who promises to buy her freedom if she marries him. She sees him secretly and bears three of his children, only two of whom live. Vyry asks Master John for permission to marry Randall, but he refuses. Vyry and Randall continue to see each other in secret, until he is forced to leave Georgia.

Before he leaves, Randall tries to get a white man to buy Vyry for him, but his plan does not work. After that, he tries to get Vyry to run away with him, but she was caught by Grimes, a slave driver, and beaten.During the time of the Civil War, the Dutton Plantation experienced many losses. Shortly after Georgia secedes from the Union, Marse John breaks his leg in a horse and carriage accident. The leg becomes infected and he dies. Lillian’s husband and brother both die in battle. During the war, many slaves run away, but Vyry and the other house servants remain. Towards the end of the war, Big Missy has a stroke and dies, leaving Lillian all alone in the Big House.

After the war, soldiers come to the Dutton Plantation to announce the Emancipation proclamation. May Liza and Caline leave with Jim the houseboy, leaving Vyry and her children alone with Lillian. That night, Vyry is nearly attacked, but a man named Innis Brown saves her. In the middle of the night, Lillian’s son Bobby comes to Vyry’s door for help. Vyry runs to the Big House to find it in total shambles. Lillian was attacked. After that, Lillian seems to have lost her mind and reverts back to her childhood. After relatives of Lillian come to care for her, Vyry marries Innis Brown and they move to Alabama to start their own farm. They build a house in the woods in the river bottom. They soon find that when the water rises, their house and farm flood. They then move to Bullock County to a share crop plantation where the landlord cheated them into a year of share-cropping. They then move again to Pike County where they find a family to work for, the Jacobsons.

While Vyry and Innis worked for the Jacobson family, they lived in a settlement near the railroad tracks. They did not feel safe from the start living there, but when the Ku Klux Klan attacks a neighbor, they decided to move. They build a house on a hill in Troy where there was plenty of land to be cultivated. The Ku Klux Klan burns that house to the ground and it was time again to move. Vyry is afraid to build another home in fear of another attack by the Ku Klux Klan. Vyry goes into town every day to sell fresh eggs, butter, and buttermilk. While in town, she is often mistaken for a white woman and hears people say very hurtful things about blacks that make her want to move again. One day on her way into town she helps a woman deliver a child. All the white neighbors of the town decide they need a “colored granny” to be a midwife to the women in town. All the neighbors pitch in to help Vyry’s family build a house and feel welcome.

Vyry thought that Randall Ware had died, but one day he visits her. He wants to take their children, Jim and Minna, to school. He also asks her to choose between himself and Innis Brown as a husband, because she is married to both of them. She chooses Innis Brown, but insists Randall Ware stays and visits. He takes Jim to send to school and leaves Vyry with money to care for her family.

Characters

* Sis Hetta She is Vyry's mother who dies in the beginning of the novel. She was given to John Dutton as a present from his father.
* Caline, May Liza, and Lucy are servants in the big house who work with Aunt Sally and Vyry.
*John Morris Dutton is the owner of the Dutton Plantation and owns Vyry and the other slaves. He is also the father of Vyry, but does not acknowledge her as his child. He gets into a carriage accident and dies of an infected leg.
*Miss Salina is the wife of Marster John. She is mean to Vyry and the other slaves and strongly believed the South would win in the Civil War,she dies of a stroke or heart attack; she is also known as Big Missy.
*Vyry is the protagonist of the novel. She is a dynamic/main character. Vyry is the youngest daughter of Hetta and Marster John. She is a black slave, but her skin is so fair she can pass as white and she looks like her sister Lilian. She is a solemn woman who knows many skills, although she cannot read or write.
*Aunt Sally is a slave in the house on the Dutton Plantation. She is the cook and teaches Vyry everything she knows. She acts as a mother to Vyry until she is sold.
*Randall Ware is a black man who was born free. He promises to marry Vyry and buy her freedom, but cannot buy her freedom.
*Jim, Minna, and Harry are Vyry’s children. Randall Ware is the father of Jim and Minna and Innis Brown is the father of Harry. Jim is like his father and doesn’t want to ever do work. Minna is more like her mother and helps her around the house.
*Miss Lillian is the daughter of mares John and Big Missy. She is about the same age as Vyry. She and Vyry play when they are little, but as they get older, Lillian treats her like all the other slaves. She goes crazy after being attacked and most of her family has died.
*Grimes was the [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overseer overseer] on the Dutton Plantation. He was strict and cruel toward the slaves.
*Innis Brown was a part of the Union army who ran away from a plantation. He marries Vyry and they move to Alabama to raise their own farm.

Major themes

Yearning for freedom and acceptance is a theme of Jubilee. Vyry, along with the other slaves, hope and dream to someday be free. Though they attain freedom from slavery in the story, they did not achieve equality. The neighors still looked down on her family after they were freed. They had little political power: to keep them quiet, the Ku Klux Klan attacks many, including Vyry’s family.

Coming of age is a major theme of Jubilee. The novel begins when Vyry is a young child and begins working in the Big House and documents her experiences working for Master John and Miss Salina with Aunt Sally and Lucy, meeting Randall Ware, and having children. Vyry goes from a useless slave to the woman in charge. She cares for Miss Lillian in her time of need. The reader follows Vyry in her journey from the one place in the world she knew to new places with new hardships. She moves with her family and new husband, Innis Brown, from place to place and problem to problem. The book shows Vyry growing through these predicaments.

A third theme of the novel is the fight for righteousness. Many of the slaves, free blacks, and even some white people fought for freedom for slaves.

ymbolism

When Randall Ware would visit Vyry, he would signal her with a whippoorwill call. She spent many nights hoping to hear that call and see him. The whippoorwill call is used as a symbol of Randall Ware, or of his memory.

Vyry has a dream about a door to freedom and a man who will not give her the key. This is an obvious representation of Randall Ware who has a way of setting her free. The man in the dream does not give her the key because it would be a complicated process and is not that simple. Another way to interpret the dream is that her dream foreshadows the civil war and Abraham Lincoln holds the key to freedom. In this way, the key represents the emancipation proclamation.

The mud pies that Vyry and Miss Lillian make when they are young symbolizes a simpler time. When she is new to the big house and is being overworked and harshly punished, Vyry yearns to go back to that simple time. After Miss Lillian is attacked, her mind reverts back to that timeframe.