JUBILEE BY MARGARET WALKER

ESSENTIAL QUESTION A

• A. How do the conflicts that the protagonist (hero) of your historical fiction novel
• struggles against help make the protagonist heroic?

PROTAGONIST

HERO

CONFLICTS

PROTAGONIST IN THE STORY

• The protagonist in this novel is Vyry
• Vyry grows up during the story, but by the end she's about 28
• Vyry is a female slave on a plantation in Georgia
• Her father is white, but her mother is black.
• She looks white so people one mistake her for a white person, not a slave

HOW DO I KNOW SHE IS THE PROTAGONIST

• I know Vyry is the protagonist because the novel revolves around her life and hardships
• The person who is telling the story is mostly her, even though others are too
• "Vyry was delighted to be going to the Rising Glory baptist church to hear Brother Ezekiel preach about God." Pg.48
• "For one thing., Vyry was glad: Womenhood meant baptizing, and come spring to the swamp woods and the creeks"
• " when they would rise and all the swollen streams flow down into the river, Brother Ezekeil would baptize her." Pg. 54

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

• In the first passage it explains that Vyry was excited go to church finally now that she was old enough
• Other reasons was that this story is taking us through her life, with just other people explaining it sometimes
• In the second passage it explains how Vyry got her "Womenhood" so now she can be baptized
• If she wasn't the protagonist I would see no reason to include that information

CONFLICTS VYRY FACES

• Vyry is a slave, so she has to deal with that most of her life.
• She's black too, obviously, so that would not be easy during those times either
• "Vyry looked up and saw her mistress holding a closet door open. She hooked the strap to a nail, then, snatching up..
• "Vyry, she crossed her hands and caught them securely with the strap. Vyry's toes barely touched the floor." Pg. 32
• "Innis was fighting the flames to pull out Vyry's new churn, and her spinning wheel." Pg 377

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

• In the first passage Vyry is punished for breaking one china plate. I consider this unfair.
• If she was not a slave she would have been treated differently
• In another part of the book, she gets whipped. No one should ever get whipped for something silly.
• When Innis and Vyry build a house on top of the hill, it gets burned down by the KKK
• The KKK didn't want blacks living in the community so they ran them out of town.

CONFLICTS THAT MAKE THE PROTAGONIST A HERO

• One thing that made Vyry a hero is that she stayed with Miss. Lillian willingly even though she could have left
• Another thing is that Randall Ware asked her to come north with him but leave the kids, but she wouldn't
• So, because of that, she got caught and got whipped.
• " Vyry took her children up to the Big House and began to sleep there where she could be near Miss Lillian"
• "But I couldn't leave my children; I just couldn't. I knows if I leave my baby she will die."

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

• Vyry stayed with Lillian because she got a head injury and
• just couldn't leave her alone in that big house
• Miss Lillian also went a little bit crazy with all the deaths.
• When Randall said to leave the kids at home she couldn't leave her babies.
• So she tried to leave with her children but got caught.

CONFLICTS VYRY HAD

• Vyry had a very difficult childhood
• She lost her mother when she was two
• While she was a child at the Big House, Big Missy hated Vyry
• Vyry was a very religious women, she believed you shouldn't hate anyone. You should forgive them even if
• They did you wrong. Never hold a grudge she says

VYRY'S SPEECH

• "I wants you to bear me witness and God knows I tells you the truth, I couldn't tell you the name of the man
• What whipped me, and if I could it wouldn't make no difference. I honestly believes that if airy one of them peoples
• What treated me like dirt when I was a slave would come to my door in the morning hungry, I would feed em. God
• Knows I ain't got no hate in my heart for nobody. If I is and doesn't know it, I prays to God to take it out. I ain't got no
• To be hating. I beleives in God and I in trying to love and help everybody, and I knows humble is the way. I doesn't"

VYRY'S SPEECH CONTINUED

• Care what you calls me, that's my doctrine and I'm gwine preach it
• To my childrens, every living one I got or ever hopes to have."
• I believe this is way Vyry is such a hero in this book. After all she's been through
• She doesn't hate anyone.
• She is a very good role model for her children.

WHY THE CONFLICTS MAKE VYRY A HERO

• She went through so much. She almost died when she was two, she was forced to be a slave with no day off
• She's been whipped, put up for auction (which she was stripped naked), all of her masters and mistresses are lost.
• And after she was free, she had at least four different houses until she could finally settle down
• The first one got flooded, the second one they got cheated so they had to flee. The third was very nice but the KKK
• Burned it down. Their last home Vyry was very cautious about the house but it ended up being ther permanent home

IS VYRY MAN VS. MAN? MAN VS SELF? OR MAN VS SOCIETY?

• I think she is a little bit of all of them.
• She has contemplates against her self many times
• She also fights with her husband(s) a lot
• She also has to live with a society that is awful

BIBLYOGRAPHY

• Walker, Margaret. Jubilee. Boston: Houston Mifflin, 1999. Print.
• http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edgerton.k12.wi.us%2Fwebpages%...
• http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.storyboardthat.com%2Farticles%...