Libertie

Cathy Sampson is an impressive figure. Even before the abolition of slavery in the United States, at a time when African American men often struggled to pursue an education, she became a doctor. She overcame many racist barriers to her success through grit and determination, informed partly by a desire to do justice to the memory of her dead husband and sister and to create a better world for her young daughter, Libertie. However, this determination also threatens to destroy Cathy’s relationship with her daughter. She is so invested in the idea of Libertie following in her footsteps that she does not allow Libertie to walk her own path. Libertie does not want to be a doctor, and Cathy considers her rejection of the profession a personal betrayal. As a result, she almost loses the most precious relationship in her life. Cathy’s greatest strengths ironically become the source of her greatest failure.

Cathy’s appearance and experiences as a Black woman also differ somewhat from her daughter’s; she is a light-skinned African American woman, while Libertie inherits her father’s dark skin. While Cathy can occasionally pass for white, Libertie cannot. Cathy’s success is therefore partly a commentary on colorism—that is, the societal preference (within or outside of the African American community) for lighter skin. Patients treat Cathy with more respect than they do Libertie, while other African Americans acknowledge the color of her skin as a part of the reason why she was able to succeed. The difference in skin tone between mother and daughter is an extension of the fundamental differences in their characters. 

Emmanuel Chase is a light-skinned African American doctor who was born in the US but whose family now lives in Haiti. He meets and falls in love with Libertie while working for her mother; for Libertie, the relationship offers an escape from her academic failure and the expectations of her mother. However, Libertie quickly discovers that Emmanuel’s promises are hollow. He claims to believe in racial and gender equality and often speaks of his ambition to turn Haiti into a new progressive country, but he cannot actually imagine a different world. His vision for Haiti is almost exactly like America, but with his light-skinned family assuming the role white people occupy in the US, and the dark-skinned Haitians constituting the social underclass. Emmanuel believes, like his father, that this is the natural order; he has bought into white supremacy to the extent that he thinks his more “European” appearance (presumably the result of a greater percentage of European ancestry) makes him superior. He is unable to comprehend his own hypocrisy, so Libertie leaves him and takes their children back to the United States.

Emmanuel’s role in the novel is to illustrate the way in which the power structures of the world continue to replicate themselves. He speaks loudly about equality and progress, but he does nothing to make good on these words. He disregards the role of women in society, even though he has promised to make Libertie his equal. He supports his father, even though his father has sexually abused many women, including Ella. He tries to rebuild Haiti along distinctly racial and religious lines, even though such distinctions caused incredible pain and suffering for his family in America. Emmanuel illustrates the empty nature of loud rhetoric. While he might offer interesting, appealing, and seductive promises, his abject failure to see reality means that he will never deliver on his ambitions. His name is thus ironic; “Emmanuel” refers to the Messiah or (in the Christian context) Jesus, but the Emmanuel of Libertie is a false prophet. Libertie becomes a true radical when she rejects Emmanuel, demonstrating how to back up ideas of freedom with actual progressive action. Nevertheless, both she and the novel hold out some hope for Emmanuel. His actions during his wife’s childbirth demonstrate that he is fundamentally good-hearted. By inviting him to join her in America, Libertie implies that his compassion could in time lead him to seek genuine liberation for the oppressed. 

Ben Daisy is an escaped slave who struggles to deal with freedom. Like many slaves, Ben has endured hardships throughout his life. He was made to work for no money, he was physically beaten, and everyone he ever loved was either abused or taken away from him. Ben eventually escapes to freedom, but when he emerges on the other side of the state line, he finds himself in a strange and confusing world. Not only is freedom overwhelming, but he cannot enjoy it with the woman he loves. Children mock him for his obsession with his departed girlfriend, Daisy, and give him the surname as a form of ridicule. Ben’s pain becomes his identity in a figurative and a literal sense.

Ben becomes obsessed with the memory of Daisy and eventually kills himself by jumping from the dock. He drowns in the water and the local legends say that a beautiful woman was waiting for him beneath the water. Suicide is an escape for Ben. Alcohol, friendship, and medicine all proved inadequate ways of handling the trauma of his past. Ben’s fate shows the truly traumatic nature of slavery as an institution, in that it has the capacity to psychologically imprison people long after they are technically free.