Close Reading: Excerpt from ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, author of the poem The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point, wrote to John Ruskin in 1855 saying, “I belong to a family of West Indian slaveholders, and if I believed in curses, I should be afraid. ” She published two anti-slavery poems between the years 1848 and 1856 in order to impart her support for the abolitionist cause. This essay aims to provide an analysis of how Barrett Browning uses language to induce sympathy in the reader for the slave, and to attempt persuading the reader to share her desire for the abolishment of slavery. Throughout the poem we learn the speaker is three things: a slave, a black person, and a woman. In the first line of the passage she phrases the sentence “I am not mad: I am black!” in such a way that it appears the two adjectives may often be mistaken for one another. This synonymy is imitated in the anatomy of the line, with the clauses preceding and following the colon almost mirroring each other in structure. The fact that the speaker feels the need to assure the audience that she is sane makes clear that she is obviously used to being mistrusted, presumably for the colour of her skin, and thus creates sympathy for her from the reader. However, her resolve in persuading the audience that she is sane conveys her passionate desire to be believed and trusted, and thus have her argument for the abolition of slavery and unity of the races taken seriously.

The speaker possibly further gains the audience’s respect when she says “You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!” This woman, who has been enslaved, raped, experienced the trauma of committing infanticide, and who is now being tortured and (it seems) hanged, still retains the ability of self-control. If the “you” is taken to still be in reference to “the Washington race”, the ruling government that allows such abhorrent things as slavery to take place, then the line elicits more admiration from the reader; the slave is now taunting them and their inability to beat her down and break her spirit. Perhaps the most obvious point at which Barrett Browning attempts to persuade the reader into sympathising with the speaker is in the final verse, with the line, “White men, I leave you all curse-free”. Had she ended the poem by condemning the ‘white men’, it would have perhaps evoked anger from some of her readership; but by ending it with such a peaceable declaration, she ensures readers will “condemn only slavery, not the slave. ” The speaker is shown to be forgiving and affable in nature, endearing her to the reader and conveying that she is true in her desire to unite the races; she really does not wish for this disparage to continue, and in being willing to forgive and forget all the wrongs against her, she strives to bring her goal of unity between the races to fruition. Barrett Browning further gains support from the reader by creating contempt for America. The speaker repeatedly uses the personal pronoun “you” to address an intradiegetic audience, creating a confrontational and aggressive atmosphere within the confines of the poem. She is addressing “the Washington race”, and so it becomes clear that the speaker is executing an attack on the ruling government that allows such abhorrent things as slavery to take place.

There is also a sense of hypocrisy and injustice on their part that is hinted at by the speaker; the pilgrims who left England to obtain (religious) freedom are the very same men who now condone the notion of slavery. This hint is further explored when the speaker refers to “this land” as “Free America”; the capitalisation of “Free” creating a sarcastic tone and hinting at the irony of America being called ‘the land of the free’ when an entire race of people within it are in chains. A sarcastic tone is also created when the speaker talks of “this UNION”, the capitalisation emphasising the word and highlighting the paradoxical and hypocritical nature of America as a country; the ‘union’ is divided, the “Two kinds of men [are] in adverse rows”. The two kinds of men could refer not only to black and white men, but – and this is almost synonymous – enslaved and free men. The key word is “adverse”, which can be used not only to mean harmful, but to describe something that prevents progress or development; the antithesis of what the speaker desires. Further contempt for America is induced when religion is mentioned. The speaker says that “all forget” about “Christ’s body fair”. The original settlers, the pilgrims, went to America in search of religious freedom; they felt that the Church of England had strayed from the teachings of the Bible – and yet now, according to the speaker, they seem to have forgotten God altogether. She herself seems to be devoted to God; in other parts of the poem she hallucinates angels, and regularly addresses God, something reverting to biblical diction as she does so.

This again would appeal to a Victorian readership and make her appear favourable in their eyes – especially when compared to those Americans, who “Are, after all, not gods indeed”. That line hints that slave-masters perhaps think so highly of themselves that they see themselves on a level with divinity; this would in turn lead to further contempt for the self-righteous, arrogant Americans in the eyes of British Victorian readers. The speaker seems to believe that the atrocity of slavery only exists because of this absence of God; when speaking of her dead child, she says that “In the deep black death […] our kisses agree”. If the speaker is as religious as she appears, she would no doubt believe in a heaven, where God would be present; and she believes His presence would make the place a realm of unity, a place where the disparate races would be able to peacefully coincide. It also creates more sympathy for her; that she must trade her life in order to gain the ability to love her child conveys the severity of the conditions under which she finds it impossible to form a bond with her child.

The line “White men, I leave you all curse-free” is perhaps the most obvious point at which Barrett Browning attempts to persuade the reader into sympathising with the speaker. Had she finished on a sour note, condemning “white men”, it would perhaps have evoked anger from some of her readership; but by ending it with a peaceable declaration such as that, she has ensured that the reader will “condemn only slavery, not the slave. ”1 To have been put through so much by “white men” – to have been kidnapped, enslaved, raped and tortured by them – and still be able to leave them “curse-free” conveys her forgiving and affable nature, endearing her to the reader. It also suggests that she is true in her desire to unite the two races, that she really does not want any disparage, that she is willing to forgive and forget all the wrongs committed against her if it means that, in the long run, her goal of unity between the races will come to fruition.