Taken for Granted

Take a moment to look around. As you notice there is nothing holding you back or restraining you from living your life style. That is called freedom. Freedom is not a given, but in the United States it is now mandatory as a citizen to be given this right. Freedom can be defined as the power to think, verbalize, and act as an individual without being punished or restrained. Freedom is a privilege and many slaves weren’t given that freedom or privilege.  In the novel, A Good Lord Bird, by James McBride he explains the injustices forced on colored people during slavery prior to the civil war. Through this we can examine the differences in how freedom is granted to slaves. However, there was a difference between slaves during this time. There were two types of slaves; a mulatto or a half white slave, who were well kept and given more desirous jobs inside a home and a full black slave, who were given brutal working and living conditions. In the novel, Pie is a mulatto and considered the most beautiful main attraction or the best whore of the house, while Sibonia is an undesirable feebleminded working slave.  Although they were both slaves, they were treated differently. Considering the manner given to the characters each were both still considered slaves which means they weren’t free to be their own person. However, as a slave Pie being more privileged than Sibonia, does not mean more free. In fact, Pie is less free than Sibonia due to the higher standards she is set at.

 Before the civil war freedom was not given to colored people and it was given less to women. In the novel, McBride can show the different ways of freedom given to two women of different slave statuses. Pie is living the high life, given the chance to live inside the big house with furbished furniture and her own room. Being granted her own room is a privilege in comparison to the other slaves like Sibonia. She even has the privacy to shut the door. However, the reasons that she has the privilege to shut the door aren’t considered freedom at all. In fact her freedom is degrading.

Not only is Pie’s freedom less because of prostitution, but she is also given less freedom than full black slaves because she is considered more valuable due to her mulatto stature. A mulatto is more privilege because they are half white, however at any given time they can be disarmed of that privilege. “Miss Abby commenced to razzing Pie something terrible for me ripping her scarf and causing a ruckus in her business. She cussed Pie’s Ma. She cussed her Pa. She cussed all her relationships in all directions. “I’ll fix it,’ Pie protested. ‘I’ll pay for the scarf.”  “You better. Git that girl out, or I’ll have Darg come up here” “(149). Here we can see that Miss Abby can stricken her from her luxurious life and put her back with the rest of the slaves outside the house like Sibonia. Darg, is the overseer of Miss Abby’s property. He is in charge of all punishments to slaves. Miss Abby basically stated that she doesn’t care for Pie meaning Pie can lose her freedom in a second. Darg is used for punishment and dehumanizing of slaves so Pie has to watch every move she makes because her freedom and privileges are on the line.

Pie is a beautiful women who was feared by slaves, yet desired by men. She was so desired by men that men would practically throw themselves at her begging to get on the Hot Floor. “And I ought to get a special favor, on account I had to kill John Brown and save the whole territory and all, just to get back to you” (McBride 145). She is set at a high standard, but confined to slavery by prostitution. Prostitution is no way to live a fulfilling life even if it makes money. In the novel, McBride sets a scene that shows the degrading nature of Pie’s life, “…Pie’s room—just in time to see Chase with trousers down and Pie sitting on her bed with her dress pulled down to her waist” (McBride 148).  A woman cannot consider herself to be free if she is always being forced to have sex with strange men. With freedom comes the right to choose, which means she has the freedom to choose which man she wants to pursue, not to be confined by prostitution.

                Sibonia on the other hand is confided to the misery of slave life. “Soon as you opened the door you stepped into an alley, and two steps across it and you was there. It was a penned-in area, and besides it was a little open area in the back where the colored set on crates, playing cards and had a little vegetable garden. Behind that was a hog pen, which open right to the colored pen for easy tending of Miss Abbey’s hogs” (159). This life was not much for living. It was dirty, it was unpleasant, and most of all it was lousy captivity. These people were clearly not free at all. They were treated just as rotten as the animals they were living with.  Miss Abby had no respect for her slaves.  She didn’t even find her slaves important. She put them in the pen with animals because she believed that the slaves were just as equal if not the same as animals.

As a slave, Sibonia is treated completely unfairly. She is barricaded under harsh rule and unjust treatment for being a slave.  However, being a slave Sibonia was willing to give up everything including her life to gain freedom. As a slave in the pen she was forced to do more manual labor unlike Pie. This only showed how truly confident and strenuous she is. Unlike Pie, Sibonia has the power to defy her job and is not afraid to show it. Sibonia was not loyal to her master, Miss Abby at all. Miss Abby didn’t treat her like a real human being so why should Sibonia respect her. Sibonia became so stern and harden with emotion that she did not care anymore. Even though Sibonia was physically a slave she never let her mind off the idea of freedom. “Reverand, it was you and your wife [Miss Abby] who taught me that God is no respecter of persons, it was you and your missus who taught me that in His eyes we are all equal. I was a slave. My husband was a slave. My children was slaves. But they was sold. Every one of them. And after the last child was sold, I said, “I will strike a blow for freedom”” (179).  Sibonia really is willing to put her life on the line to gain freedom especially for her family. She was not afraid to fight for freedom which made her much freer than Pie. 

Sibonia was not loyal to Miss Abbey, yes she works as a laborer, but she is not loyal. Sibonia's freedom would be based off of either a revolt or a fearsome escape plan which both can lead to her death. Sibonia is a lot smarter than she reveals for she plots to mislead her masters by acting feebleminded.

Although Sibonia being a captive slave to Miss Abby, she can be considered slightly more free than Pie. Pie is known to be completely loyal to her master, Miss Abbey, which makes her a rat to always tell the truth. Pie is so loyal to her master that she went so far as to disrespecting the rest of the slaves for her own self benefit. “Someone from the pen must’ve told Pie that Sibonia was planning a breakout, and Pie told it to the judge for some kind of favor, and when the stew got boiled down and shared out, why, it weren’t a breakout at all, but rather murder” (186).  Pie killed Sibonia and the rest of the slaves because she is a rat and limited the freedom to branch out for rebellion like Sibonia. She did whatever she had to, to save her life. Unfortunately, Pie still being a slave was stricken of her freedom after telling the truth. Her status of prostitution only became more prominent. She essentially lost her freedom by being fully degraded and violated by Darg, the overseer of the yard. “Her head was throwed back and she was howling while he rode her and called her a high-yellow whore and turn-coat for turning in all them niggers and revealing their plot” (190). She lost her privilege of freedom because she confessed too much. Being a mulatto slave only granted so much freedom until she disrespected the rest of the slaves that brought income to Miss Abby’s plantation.  

                Freedom is not a given, at least not in the slave days for colored people. Mulatto or Black these people were not free. They were limited from basic needs like education and reading, stricken of their dignity. Prostitution or manual laborer these women both were not free. However the difference between both Pie and Sibonia is the idea of freedom. Sibonia might have been looked more down upon because she was a full black slave but she was more respected than Pie as a prostitute. In the end Sibonia gained her freedom from her death. Pie is still not free in any sense of the word because she is still being violated by men and her master.

Works Cited

McBride, James. The Good Lord Bird. New York: Penguin Audio, 2014. Print