The Thirteenth Amendment and Incarceration

When Marcus encounters Pauline on the road in the quarters in Ernest Gaines’ Of Love and Dust, he becomes angry at Pauline for ignoring his advances while she accepts Bonbon’s advances towards her. He asks, “What’s the matter with you? . . . I been working up there all night like a slave, like a dog — and all on ‘count of him. What’s the matter with you?” Here, Marcus refers to Bonbon working him “like a slave,” and his choice or words here stands out, especially if we consider Marcus’ position in the novel. Marshall Hebert bonded Marcus out of jail in preparation for the upcoming trial, and Marcus must work on Marshall’s plantation to pay off Marshall’s bail payment.

A similar conversation takes place in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple when Sofia gets bonded out of jail after standing up for herself by slapping the white mayor. Like Marcus, Sofia goes to work for a white family, in their home instead of on a plantation. Working for the mayor’s wife, Sofia lives at the home, unable to see her children or leave. Talking with Celie, Sofia relates how Mrs. Millie, the mayor’s wife, asks Sofia if she knows how to dirve and can teach her. Sofia responds in the affirmative as she was, as Sofia puts it, “slaving away cleaning that big post they got down at the bottom of the stair.”