Book Club book.
Summary
In out book club we had a chance to choose a book of our choice from a range of selections and I decided to read The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. The story follows the journey of a runaway slave named Cora and her journey in escaping her plantation, running away from a slave catcher, and discovering the United States while doing so.
Literary Devices
I think you can find a variety of literary devices in this book, but the one that stood out to me was the hob. In the Randall plantation the "hob women" are seen as crazy and almost like they are not part of the plantation. They are almost excluded by the other slaves and the only thing unifying them is the fact that they only have each other to live with. This symbol shows Cora's personality, she is not the average slave, the book has some parts that give you a sense the Cora is an outsider to all of this and "has to be crazy" in order to escape the plantation.
Close Reading Skills
A skill of reading that I really am glad to have gained is to ask myself what may happen next, not only is it interesting to try and figure out the situation the character is in, but it also helps to make sure that you fully understand what is going on. I found myself looking back from time to time just to make sure I knew what was going on.
My Critical Lense.
The lenses I chose to read my book through was queer theory, I made sure to pay close attention to gender roles in the book. Since this book is in a time period of slavery, men had a lot of power and women did not really have any. Not only that but I also noticed an obvious difference in race.