Copper Sun

by

Sharon Draper

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Copper Sun: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Once a day, the women leave the cell in small groups. Guards toss buckets of water on them, and the soldiers like to rip the women’s tops to expose their breasts. Afi, the woman who befriended Amari, helps Amari get food and shows her how to look vacant, thereby escaping the notice of soldiers looking for women to rape at night. Afi’s husband and daughter died about two years ago, so Amari figures that Afi needs her as much as she needs Afi. One night, they wonder whether the gods can hear them. Afi says that the gods can see them and that they’re weeping, and she gently reminds Amari that they can’t escape from this place.
The sexual abuse that Amari and the other female slaves suffer makes it clear that as women, they’re particularly vulnerable to violence. Slavery makes it so they have no power to stand up to this abuse, so their only course of action is to look undesirable. Afi’s information helps Amari learn that she’s going to have to come up with new ways of looking at the world if she intends to survive. Her friendship, however, suggests that friends are one thing that Amari should never stop looking for.
Themes
Slavery, Dehumanization, and Resistance Theme Icon
Friendship Theme Icon
Gender, Race, and Power Theme Icon
One day, all the women are brought into the center of a prison and chained at the wrists and ankles. Strange white men inspect the women like they’re animals for slaughter. One man tries to lift Amari’s upper lip, but she jerks away. He slaps her so hard that she almost falls. Afi hisses for Amari to open her mouth; terrified, Amari does. The white man pokes around in Amari’s mouth and then prods her arms, thighs, and breasts. Finally, the men seem to come to an agreement; the men who captured Amari accept cowrie shells, cloth, and gold. Then, the men push their captives through a low door. Frightened, Amari slowly crawls through. When hands pull her up and outside into the bright sunshine, she sees white sand and, for the first time, the ocean. It’s beautiful, powerful, and frightening.
Afi makes it clear that if Amari wants to survive and suffer as little physical abuse as possible, she’ll have to give in to some of their enslavers’ demands—no matter how dehumanizing those demands may be. The poking and prodding Amari suffers dehumanizes her and makes it clear to her that she no longer gets a say in what happens to her body. Seeing the trade happen right in front of her only reinforces this—to the men, Amari isn’t a person. She’s the equivalent of some cowrie shells, fabric, and gold.
Themes
Slavery, Dehumanization, and Resistance Theme Icon
Gender, Race, and Power Theme Icon
Amari wonders if they’re going to throw her in the sea and notices a “house” resting far out on the water. It can’t be a boat, since boats can only hold a couple people. Amari decides the house must be a place for the dead. Men drag Amari to what looks like a goat pen with a fire burning in the middle. A Black man shoves her down and another man picks something up out of the fire and approaches Amari. Amari hears her flesh sizzle and screams as he brands her. Someone smears a salve on her wound and throws her into a different holding pen. Afi follows not long after, though she doesn’t cry when they brand her. Afi doesn’t know what happens next, but she’s heard that the ocean spills over the edge of the world and that there’s only death there.
Again, when Amari thinks the pen looks like a goat pen, it speaks to just how dehumanizing this experience is—Amari is being treated worse than she’d treat an animal. And since Amari and Afi know so little about the world beyond their own homes, their future is entirely unknown and therefore more terrifying. Fortunately, Afi has heard rumors about what might be across the ocean, but denying the slaves clear information about what’s happening is another way to dehumanize them and keep them terrified.
Themes
Slavery, Dehumanization, and Resistance Theme Icon
Amari figures the white men have to have come from somewhere, and Afi agrees—whatever is on the other side of the ocean is a horrific place if the people who live there are willing to brand other people. Before the women can continue their conversation, several men are thrown into the cell. Several are the Ashanti warriors who captured Amari’s village, one is the Black man who branded her, and the last is Besa. The guards separate the men from the women. Amari wants to run to Besa, who looks defeated. The prisoners sit all day in the hot sun without water as uniformed men walk around, seemingly preparing. Amari watches, horrified, as several climb into a small boat and row to the floating house. They return with more men and chains for the prisoners.
That the white men turn the tables on the Ashanti drives home that no African people are safe from the slave trade, even if they’re the ones facilitating it. This speaks to the inhumanity of the white men engaged in the abduction of African people, since they clearly don’t even see those Black people who are willing to help them as human beings. Rather, they’re bodies who are convenient until the time comes when they’re not anymore—and then they become slaves.
Themes
Slavery, Dehumanization, and Resistance Theme Icon
Gender, Race, and Power Theme Icon
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Amari has never seen a sunset like tonight’s. The copper sun seems to bleed for the prisoners as it sinks. After dark, the captors prepare food and give generous portions to the prisoners. Afi explains that this is probably to prepare them for the journey. She hesitates before saying that they’ll go out to the “boat of death” and will never return. Amari feels a chill and doesn’t understand. Afi reminds her that they’re slaves. Amari knows this—but in her village, the slaves are respected and sometimes, their masters adopt them as extended family members. She asks if their slavery will be different, and Afi says she doesn’t know but suspects it will be horrific. Amari thinks that she can’t imagine worse than the night she was captured. She realizes that she’s glad Kwasi is dead—he’ll never have to endure any of this.
Amari is no stranger to slavery, but the kind of slavery she’s familiar with is fundamentally different from the slavery she’s a victim of now. When she feels like the copper sun is bleeding for the prisoners, Amari is using the beauty of the natural world to make sense of her own thoughts and emotions. Because of her grief and sadness in this moment, the sun isn’t the beautiful entity it was when she was happy at home. Now, it reflects her grief and her sense that everything about her and her life is changing.
Themes
Slavery, Dehumanization, and Resistance Theme Icon
Horror vs. Beauty Theme Icon