The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad: Style 1 key example

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Explanation and Analysis:

The Underground Railroad offers a textured account of 19th-century slavery through its engagement with figurative language, dialect, free indirect discourse, and time. It is a multi-perspective story that shifts constantly between Cora and the other characters along her journey. At times, Whitehead narrates the novel from Caesar's, Ethel's, and even Ridgeway’s viewpoints. This cast of characters layers the novel with different voices and enables it to grapple with the complex experience of slavery. At the same time, facsimiles of runaway postings before every leg of Cora’s journey create a reading experience in which history is both alive and present. The novel brings chattel slavery out from the realm of historical archives and into an active, unfolding conversation.