Middle Passage: Analysis of Major Characters
"Middle Passage: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the intricate journey of Rutherford Calhoun, the novel's first-person narrator and a manumitted slave who embarks on a transformative voyage. Initially educated and pleasure-seeking, Calhoun leaves his rural Illinois home following a dispute with his brother over inheritance. His escape leads him to New Orleans, where he resorts to charm and deceit for survival. Facing pressures from Isadora Bailey, a Boston schoolteacher, and the powerful underworld figure Papa Zeringue, Calhoun ultimately stows away on the Republic, a slave ship bound for Africa.
Throughout the voyage, Calhoun navigates a complex social landscape filled with various factions, including the crew and the enslaved Allmuseri captives. His self-serving nature initially drives him to pledge allegiance to multiple parties. However, as he encounters the brutality of the slave trade and experiences personal hardships, Calhoun undergoes a profound internal transformation. This culminates in a reevaluation of his understanding of reality, leading him toward a vision of interdependence and compassion. The narrative concludes with his rescue by those he once fled, indicating a full-circle moment of redemption and a newfound commitment to family and community.
Middle Passage: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Charles Johnson
First published: 1990
Genre: Novel
Locale: On board a slave ship
Plot: Bildungsroman
Time: 1830
Rutherford Calhoun, the novel's first-person narrator. Calhoun, a well-educated and pleasure-seeking slave, is manumitted at the age of twenty-one. Angered by his brother's refusal of their master's wealth, Calhoun leaves rural Illinois for New Orleans, where he survives on charm, thievery, and lies. When Boston schoolteacher Isadora Bailey, aided by black underworld king Papa Zeringue, attempts to force Calhoun into marriage, he stows away on the Republic, a slave ship about to sail to Africa. His shipmates are divided into many factions, and Calhoun, as always guided by his own best interests, pledges allegiance to them all. Thus he vows loyalty to Captain Falcon, to the mutiny-bound crew, and finally to the African captives, the Allmuseri. Amid wild storms, cruel treatment of the black captives, the slaves' rebellion, a life-threatening illness, and a dark-night-of-the-soul experience, Calhoun, a philosopher as well as a trickster, examines the dualistic and hierarchical view of reality by which he and America live. Gradually, this experience gives him a new vision, one of interdependence and compassion. When the ship sinks, Calhoun is rescued by Papa Zeringue and Isadora Bailey, from whom he fled at his journey's beginning. Calhoun's conversion is complete. With Isadora Bailey now his wife, he sets off for Illinois to reunite with his brother.