Birds symbolize the experience of freedom, and when enslaved characters like Amos Fortune look at them flying in the sky, they represent a deep-seated, human longing for liberty. Amos watches gulls flying overhead when he disembarks from the slave ship White Falcon in Boston as a way to disassociate himself from the dehumanizing experience of being sold into enslavement in Caleb Copeland’s home. Later, when he finally experiences freedom for the first time in decades, he watches birds flying above Mrs. Richardson’s home. Similarly, when Amos buys freedom for Violet and Celyndia, Celyndia’s first act as a free person is to chase a bird into a field without permission.
Birds Quotes in Amos Fortune, Free Man
At-mun was hailed by the auctioneer and his chains were removed. For the first time in more than four months he could walk freely, yet not freely. He had been given a pair of trousers to wear before coming off the ship and he found them even more restrictive than chains. The people on the wharf shouted with laughter at the curious way the black youth walked. At-mun mounted the block. Above him, gulls were dipping and soaring, coming to rest in the tall masts of the White Falcon, filling the air with their raucous cries. At-mun kept his eyes on them.
He took the candle from Mrs. Richardson’s outstretched hand and the plate of food she had ready for him, then he went across the grass to the hut that was Mr. Richardson’s workshop and would be Amos’ home all the years of his servitude. From the house, Ichabod Richardson and his wife heard the slave singing to himself long after he had blown out his candle to save the precious tallow.
Mrs. Richardson tilted her head to listen. “If you had a slave for no other reason than their singing, I often think it would be worth it,” she said. “And yet, so long as they’re not free their songs are like those of birds in a cage.”
“He’ll have his freedom in time, but not until he’s paid me well for the price I paid for him.”
He watched swallows swooping in their flight, feeling as if he were one of them; his eyes dwelt on a tree that was a mass of white blossom.
It had been spring, too, when he had been free before […]. Yet that had been a lifetime ago; another life, perhaps, for now his life was beginning again. He was almost sixty years old and he was ready to live. He flexed his muscles; they were strong. He raised his head from the blossoming tree to the blue sky above and the thought of Moses came into his mind, of Moses who stood upon Mount Nebo seeing with his eyes the land that his feet might not tread upon.
“‘And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died.’” Amos spoke the words as reverently as if he were reading them from the open book […]. “So there’s time for Amos, too.”
Celyndia came running back to them as the bird flew off across the meadow, dipping to the grass, then soaring to a bush’s height, balancing itself against the wind as it pursued some pattern of its own.
“Why’nt you go on fluttering after the flutterling, child?” Violet asked.
“’Cause he flew over that field and we can’t go there.”
“The world is yours, Celyndia,” Amos said quietly. “Don’t you remember what I told you last night? You’re as free as birds in the air.”
A smile started to part Celyndia’s full lips, but before it had its way the lips began to quiver and the large dark eyes filled with tears […]
“Let her alone, Violet,” Amos said as he patted Celyndia’s heaving shoulders, “some things are too wonderful even for a child, and freedom’s one of them.”
Birds Symbol Timeline in Amos Fortune, Free Man
