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Masterplots: 2010-2018 Supplement

The Underground Railroad

by Marybeth Rua-Larsen

Author: Colson Whitehead

Born: November 6, 1969; New York, New York

First published: August 2, 2016

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Quest

Time of plot: Early to mid-nineteenth century

Locales: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana

Principal Characters

Cora, a teenage slave on the Randall plantation who was left behind after her mother escaped when she was a child

Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived at the Randall plantation and attempts to escape with Cora

Mabel, Cora’s mother, a slave on the Randall plantation who escaped without Cora

Ajarry, Cora’s grandmother and a slave on the Randall planation who was captured in Africa

Arnold Ridgeway, a slave catcher who is hired to capture Mabel, Cora, and Caesar

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The Story

Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad is much more than a simple narrative describing the horrors of slavery. Instead, the novel uses slavery and the brutal treatment of African Americans during this period in history as a vehicle to illuminate contemporary racial and social problems. Whitehead blends history with elements of fantasy to follow his protagonist, Cora, on her bid for freedom, and he incorporates both the future and the past by alluding to other historic periods of exploitation and terror, such as the Salem witch trials and Tuskegee syphilis study. Through the creation of convincing and compelling characters and the inclusion of fantastical elements, Whitehead moves the story beyond a narrative of one character’s horrific experiences to one that examines the profound and continuing legacy of slavery in the United States.

While the main focus of the novel is on Cora, who is a third-generation slave on the Randall cotton plantation in Georgia, Whitehead intersperses chapters detailing Cora’s journey with chapters highlighting the lives and backgrounds of secondary characters. Whitehead begins by describing Cora’s grandmother, Ajarry, who was captured in her native Ouidah, in modern-day Benin, and survived the inhumane suffering of the Middle Passage. After arriving, Ajarry never leaves the planation, as opposed to Cora’s mother, Mabel, who escapes when Cora is ten years old and is never heard from again. Cora has an especially treacherous time navigating plantation slave life as an abandoned child, and although she resents her mother for leaving her behind, she also begrudgingly admires her successful escape. Cora dreams of freedom for herself, but it is not until the plantation is in the hands of an especially cruel master that Caesar, a recently purchased slave, convinces her to escape.

Much of the rest of the novel focuses on her quest for freedom, detailing the difficulty of the quest and Cora’s dogged determination. Often, when Cora considers settling in a spot that seems ideal, circumstances emerge that force her to flee again. Other chapters focus on secondary characters Cora encounters on her journey, such as Ethel, the wife of an abolitionist who reluctantly shelters her, and Aloysius Stevens, a doctor who pressures African American women to be sterilized and has a shady past as a grave robber. A third chapter, and one of the most revealing, is dedicated to the slave catcher Arnold Ridgeway, who is determined to catch Cora and return her to the plantation. These three chapters on white secondary characters provide an insightful counterpoint on race relations and the horrors that often hid behind seemingly good intentions.

Although there are long sections of the novel where they do not interact, Cora and Ridgeway drive much of the suspense in the story—Cora in her determination to be free and Ridgeway in his obsession with finding and capturing her. Both are especially memorable and thought-provoking. Cora is courageous and keen, and her observations help her decide when to fight and when to stay silent. After her mother escapes, for example, she inherits her small vegetable plot and is determined to keep it, despite her young age. Older and physically stronger slaves try to take it from her, but she fights with the aid of a hatchet and wins. It is a small but significant triumph in a place where few victories are possible, and although she later pays a heavy price for winning that battle, it is evidence of the ingenuity and scrappiness she needs to survive. As the novel progresses and she attempts to build a new life as a free and independent woman, she continues to study the people and places around her. While the South Carolina town she first arrives in, with its soft cotton dresses and safe, campus-like atmosphere, appears to be the utopia she has been searching for, her keen observations about the mysterious situation of a woman in another dormitory and her conversation with a doctor pressuring her and others to take advantage of permanent birth control reveal that this is not the case. In Cora, Whitehead creates a protagonist to champion but also one who, despite her stubbornness and difficulty allowing herself to be emotionally vulnerable, is relentlessly strong. Through Cora, Whitehead implies that African Americans must be constant in their vigilance, that their guard cannot be lowered without the possibility of experiencing devastating consequences. Cora is continuously on the run, and often what seems on the surface to be paradise is not safe due to outside forces beyond her control, mirroring the plight of many African Americans in contemporary society.

Similarly, Ridgeway, the slave catcher, is also a strong and memorable character, but for entirely different reasons. He is Cora’s equal in collecting details, such as when he questions the captured white abolitionists who helped Cora escape. He then investigates every lead, hoping to follow Cora’s trail. He is also cruel and revels in his ruthlessness, further dehumanizing slaves by referring to them as “it” rather than he or she, and his delight in watching Cora’s face when he recites the grim details of her loved ones’ circumstances. Ridgeway had been hired to find Cora’s mother, Mabel, years ago and failed, and that failure has affected him deeply. When he has the chance to redeem himself and find Cora, Mabel’s daughter, he makes it his personal mission. Ridgeway is both cool, never losing his temper and remaining eerily calm, and he is even seemingly kind at moments, such as when he buys Cora a new dress, but ultimately he is relentless in his pursuit of fugitive slaves and his punishments are severe and chillingly cold-blooded. Critics such as Christian Lorentzen, in his review of the novel for Vulture, have equated Ridgeway’s brand of racism and detailed scrutiny with some modern-day police officers.

It is the fantasy elements, however, that truly elevate the novel and encourage a depth of reading and comparisons, such as with Ridgeway, to contemporary society. The Underground Railroad is, in Whitehead’s version, a literal underground train complete with tunnels, train tracks, stations, and boxcars rather than the legendary network of safe houses. In terms of the Underground Railroad being a literal train, for example, Cora is told that she will see the “true face of America” as she rides the train to freedom. Being the observant person she is, she is dismayed that there is nothing to see. She eventually realizes this was a joke, that “there was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.” Whitehead suggests that the true face of America is mired in a past it can neither face nor escape. He similarly uses Cora’s job at the Museum of Natural Wonders, a living museum that enacts scenes from the past, including the lives of slaves, to show how often history is not written by the people who lived and experienced it but by others, in this case white Americans, who, although trying to be helpful, have little understanding and empathy, effectively whitewashing history. There are numerous other references to the Salem witch trials and the Tuskegee syphilis study, which occurred in the seventeenth century and the twentieth century, respectively, widening the scope of the novel’s exploration of the terrors of history and how they recur at regular intervals. Whitehead implies that the past is not settled and over and that the legacy of slavery continues.

Critical Evaluation

Although this novel is distinctly different from Whitehead’s previous novels, those earlier novels did set the stage for The Underground Railroad, not in terms of providing a historical approach or his use of dark comic elements, but through raising questions about race in contemporary society and the incorporation of myth, fantasy, and even speculative fiction. In most of his novels, Whitehead has explored the impact of race and racism in a contemporary context. In The Intuitionist (1999), for example, Whitehead focused on protagonist Lila Mae Watson as the first female African American elevator inspector in a large city resembling New York. After the tragic crash of an elevator she has recently inspected, Whitehead, with ironic humor, explores a possible racially based conspiracy in which she is blamed for the accident. In a later novel, Zone One (2013), Whitehead presents a darkly comic zombie apocalypse in which the race of the protagonist, Mark Spitz, is not identified until very late in the novel, prompting readers to speculate about race and question their assumptions. In The Underground Railroad, Whitehead continues his discussion of race, and although it does have a small instance or two of dark humor, it focuses more on the role history plays in defining and perpetuating entrenched and often unconscious beliefs about race.

The Underground Railroad won the 2016 National Book Award for fiction, and critics have been nearly unanimous in their praise for Whitehead’s deeply emotional, unflinching, and creative interpretation of the slave narrative. They praise protagonist Cora for her gritty determination in the face of the complex forces against her, ranging from her own mother’s abandonment to Ridgeway’s relentless pursuit. Critics were especially impressed with Whitehead’s deft use of metaphor, making the Underground Railroad a literal train where the passengers travel in complete darkness and their destinations are unknown. Critics also appreciated Whitehead’s ability to draw from other periods in history to show the fluidity of history and to explore how racial equality is in constant jeopardy by seen and unseen forces set to undermine and destroy it. Thus, when critic Michael Shaub called it “a novel against forgetting,” in a review for NPR, he confirms that vigilance is necessary, and that questions about racial equality continue to be relevant.

The Underground Railroad is a timely and important novel, not just because of Whitehead’s strong, moving characterizations and his characters’ abilities to persevere despite horrific circumstances, but because he has found a way to make the past the present and to foster an awareness of the hard-won and ongoing efforts to advance racial equality.

Citation Types

MLA 9th

Rua-Larsen, Marybeth. "The Underground Railroad." Masterplots: 2010-2018 Supplement,Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=MPSupp_0172.

APA 7th

Rua-Larsen, M. (2019). The Underground Railroad. Masterplots: 2010-2018 Supplement. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Rua-Larsen, Marybeth. "The Underground Railroad." Masterplots: 2010-2018 Supplement. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed September 15, 2026. online.salempress.com.

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