Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Never Caught, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery and Paternalism
Narrative and Historical Erasure
The Creation of America
Freedom and Agency
Summary
Analysis
One June evening, George and Martha Washington attend a performance at a theater in Philadelphia. They like the comedy so well that the following night, they give Ona, Austin, and Hercules permission to attend the long, intricate performance. Throughout their stay in Philadelphia, Ona and her fellow slaves are afforded several such opportunities to attend the circus, to use money given them by the Washingtons to do Christmas shopping for their friends and family, and to experience life in Philadelphia—though they cannot join Black mutual aid societies or participate fully in the world of their free Black counterparts.
Even as Ona and her fellow bondmen and women take part in certain aspects of city life, the constant reminder that they live beneath the watchful eyes of their enslavers prevents them partaking of true freedom. Dunbar shows that no matter how “well” enslaved Black men and women were treated, the simple fact of their enslavement was too egregious to overcome—freedom, for many such as Ona, became the only thing worth fighting for.
Themes
For nearly six years, as Ona travels back and forth between Philadelphia and Mount Vernon, she slowly begins learning about the laws of Pennsylvania—and the growing movements among free Black people in the north. She no doubt knows that running away carries unbelievably high risks, and that should she be forced to indenture herself to a family other than the Washingtons to survive, she may face threats such as rape or dangerous kinds of labor. Ona, Dunbar writes, likely struggled mightily: though she no doubt would have preferred freedom, she chose to stay, for the time being, in a place where she felt relatively secure.
As Ona weighs the risks of running away against the pain and humiliation of remaining enslaved, Dunbar attempts to reconstruct how Ona must have been feeling and what thoughts might have been running through her head. Using historical context from the time, Dunbar offers practical information about the risks and the rewards of pursuing freedom.
Themes
Though the number of free Black men and women in Philadelphia continues to rise, by 1790, they comprise only 5 percent of the city’s population. Slave owners are quicker to emancipate male slaves, and the smaller population of emancipated Black women is often forced into grueling domestic labor or rag picking. Ona understands that freedom is, for the time being, not easy by any means. Ona witnesses the organization of free Black communities in Philadelphia from afar.
Dunbar uses even more historical context to show how Ona would no doubt have begun to feel envious of her free Black counterparts—no matter how difficult the work they undertook as free people was. Ona could bear witness to—but could not participate in—the growing Black community in the city in which she lived.
Themes
Two of the Washingtons’ slaves, Giles and Paris, fall out of favor—Giles due to an incapacitating injury and Paris due to laziness and disrespectful behavior. They are left behind at Mount Vernon and do not return to Philadelphia. The absence of two slaves at the High Street house, then, means more work for the remaining slaves—including Ona, who likely begins to realize with an even deeper acuteness that her life is not her own. Her circumstances, she begins to understand, are completely subject to the whims of the people who own her.
Dunbar continues to chart the growing internal and external pressures weighing upon Ona as she considers more and more what it would actually mean to pursue freedom by running away. With each passing day, it seems that Ona becomes increasingly aware of how entirely her life and the lives of her fellow enslaved people are dictated and defined by their enslavers’ whims.
Themes
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The difficulties of life in Philadelphia are compounded during the summer of 1793, when an outbreak of a mosquito-borne illness, yellow fever, sickens and kills thousands. The Washingtons, along with Ona, escape home to Mount Vernon to avoid the epidemic, which ravages the city until the mosquitos die off with November’s first frost. The epidemic is devastating—particularly to the Black community—and 5,000 Philadelphians perish. Grief and racial tensions collide in the winter of 1793 as free Black leaders in Philadelphia confront just how dehumanized and ignored Black Philadelphians still are compared to the city’s white citizens.
Dunbar demonstrates how yet another unpredictable, unforeseeable factor begins to highlight for Ona—and for the free and enslaved Black populations of Philadelphia alike—just how unjust, unequal, and racist the treatment they receive truly is. The yellow fever outbreak, in Dunbar’s estimation, weighed on Ona’s mind as she attempted to decide what to do about her future.
Themes
In 1794, Ona’s brother Austin dies, drowning in a river while on the way from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon. Austin was Ona’s only family member up north, and now Ona must now navigate Philadelphia life alone. Ona’s mother, Betty, passes away in January of 1795, and her loss marks another huge blow to Ona’s family. With the loss of two family members in such rapid succession, Dunbar suggests that Ona perhaps begins to believe that the North is more her home than Mount Vernon is.
Dunbar implicitly points to Austin and Betty’s deaths as additional compounding factors in Ona’s decision-making process regarding her pursuit of freedom. The tragedy of two of her most beloved family members’ deaths must have made Ona feel more alone and thus more desperate to make a life for herself outside the sphere of Mount Vernon and the Washingtons.
Themes
