Petrus Character Analysis

Petrus is one of the most influential white residents of the town near where Fiela, Selling, and their children live. Petrus is one of the more sympathetic white authority figures in the novel, providing money to Fiela and Selling to help them get married and start their own life. Nevertheless, even from the start Petrus has conflicted motives: part of the reason why Petrus helps Selling get married is because he doesn’t want Selling to move on to another town and take a new job. Similarly, Petrus seems to genuinely want to help Fiela attempt to reclaim her adopted white son Benjamin, but after meeting with the (white) magistrate, he accepts the magistrate’s judgment that Benjamin is not Fiela’s and fails to see the flaws in the magistrate’s process. Petrus represents how in a racist society, even seemingly well-intentioned members of the dominant class can cause harm to marginalized people, either through naivety or through an unwillingness to question the injustice around them.