Ethel

Ever since she saw a woodcut of a missionary surrounded by jungle natives, Ethel thought it would be spiritually fulfilling to serve the Lord in dark Africa, delivering savages to the light.

Reveals Ethel’s saviour complex personality, and her fundamentally racist belief that African people were uncivilised people in need of white salvation.

In gratitude the n— lift her to the sky, praising her name: Ethel, Ethel.

Reveals how she desires to be praised and adored, and her fantasy that her work will be valued and worshipped by the Africans.

Jasmine was like a sister to her.

Ethel’s close bond with Jasmine in her youth reflects clearly how racism was taught.

Her face blackened, she practiced expressions of amazement and wonder in front of the mirror so she’d know what to expect when she met her heathens.

Reveals her racism but also desperation, ‘heathens’ connotes evil or a non-following of God.

Ethel thought that a slave was someone who lived in your house like a family but was not family. Her father explained the origin of the negro to disabuse her of this colourful idea.

Reveals how Ethel was taught to believe in racism and segregation, and that black people were inherently evil.

On her eighth birthday, Ethel’s father forbid her to play with Jasmine as not to pervert the natural state of relations between the races.

Further shows how Ethel and Jasmine were purposefully split apart.

Whites lived downstairs and blacks lived upstairs, and to bridge that separation was to heal a biblical wound.

Ironic, since Ethel’s father preached that Ethel could not play with Jasmine yet continued to exploit and abuse her. Reflects the double standards as well, people ignored the religious teachings they preached in order for selfish purposes.

One day over lunch Ethel announced that when she was old enough, she intended to spread the Christian word to African primitives. Her parents scoffed. It was not something that good young women from Virginia did.

Even Ethel was looked down upon from her parents from wanting to preach in Africa.

Slavery as a moral issue never interested Ethel.

Still ultimately believes slavery that if slavery was never meant to be, it would not have been that way.

A savage to call her own, at last.

Ethel acts in a possessive way over Cora, and although she initially was frustrated with her appearance in her house, she was ultimately happy that she was able to spread the word of God to her.