My Sister's Keeper

Essay Prompt #2

The novel Wench, written by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, is a fictional story based on slavery that occured in United States in the past. It takes place in a house, Tawawa House, where the slave masters go to in the summer in between free and slave land. Each of the slave masters bring with them one of the slaves, usually the favorite, more than likely their slave mistress. Each one of the slave women that went up to the summer house, Lizzie, Mawu, Sweet, and Reenie, desired and valued their freedom in such different ways from each other.

All of the slave women in the story desired freedom to an extent. They all wanted to get away from their masters who some may have loved. Even though some may have loved their masters, they did desire to taste freedom, to where they did not have to report to anyone or get whipped or work for no pay. They saw the free black workers at Tawawa House, and felt like if they could be just like that and envied them. They desired it so much and wanted to do so much more with their life.

Even though they desired to be free, Sweet and Lizzie thought about their kids more than ever. They did not want to leave their kids to be slaves and they would rather their kids got out before they could, Lizzie more than Sweet. Reenie and Mawu felt the total opposite way. They thought that the only way to help they children was to help themselves at first. They had no problem leaving their kids for a while until they got up on their feet to where they could fully help them get out of that life. Mawu and Reenie did not view their children as a blessing as Sweet and Lizzie did because of the fact that their fathers was the slave masters.

The Tawawa House was located between free land and slave land but the slaves never really spoke of running away until Mawu got there the summer of 1852. They all thought of it just like any slave would probably do but they never really spoke of it out loud because of their fears. When Mawu and her fearlessness came to the retreat that summer and mentioned it, it put all kinds of thoughts into their heads. The only one who was against it at the time was Lizzie because that was when she felt like she was in love with her master. When the Mawu and Reenie finally got to running away a couple of summers later, Lizzie realized then that she could not because of her physical ties to her master which were her children.

All in all, everyone's desire for freedom was different and kind of the same. They all wanted to see what it would be like to be free, as every slave would probably do but their desire was different mostly because of how they each felt about their children and their children's fathers. They each had their own reasons for