The Underground Railroad Discussion Post PDF

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Professor Martha Cutter...

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What is ironic about Mabel’s fate? Does she find freedom? Does it matter? Why is this left until the end of the book? Mabel’s fate is one of the most anticipated moments in the novel despite the fact that until this point, she is merely a figure presented to us through the lens of others’ perceptions of her. I found myself just as curious about and affected by her fate as I was by Cora’s. In the end, while her death is obviously tragic, I don’t think that it matters in terms of the impact that her escape leaves on the lives of those that are fixated upon her. Mabel becomes a mystical figure, crafted by the varying assumptions and imaginations of those she leaves behind - the memory of her serves a different purpose to these individuals. More than anything, Mabel holds symbolic significance. To Ridgeway, she is a ghost that haunts him relentlessly; the fact that he was chasing a corpse all this time, investing so much emotional stock into an impossible mission, gave me a bit of satisfaction (because he’s the worst). Because Ridgeway is unaware of her death, it seems inconsequential in this aspect; he still internalizes his failure and incites his own demise, reckless in his pursuit of vengeance and redemption via Cora’s capture. Mabel, or what she comes to represent in Ridgeway’s mind, proves to be his biggest vulnerability, the contradiction to his self-proclaimed invincibility. Mabel holds a similar significance to Terrance Randall - again, she is evidence that his authority is not infallible. It seems like he attempts to compensate for Mabel’s evasion of punishment by inflicting the most cruel fortunes upon other returned escapees, as if he is attempting, unsuccessfully, to fabricate the satisfaction Mabel’s punishment would have given him via the torture of other slaves. To Cora, Mabel is a vision of both hope and hatred. Her anger towards her mother fuels her motivation to escape just as much as her innate desire to find her does, although we discover that this wasn’t her mother’s original intention. Whitehead writes: “When [Mabel] found the words to share it with Cora, the girl would understand there was something beyond the plantation, past all that she knew. That one day if she stayed strong, the girl could have it for herself” (300). Although Mabel relinquishes the promise of liberty that lays before her, she claims freedom in the sense that it takes shape in her mind - it is now an idea that can be passed down through her lineage. Mabel is now equipped to potentially change Cora’s fate; a desire to chase the momentary bliss that her mother would have relayed to her could have shattered any compliance with/acceptance of her bondage that could accompany a life lived entirely in an enslaved state. We see Mabel quickly give up on the idea of claiming freedom for herself: “Her escape had been a preposterous idea, but even a sliver of it amounted to the best adventure of her life” (301). Instead, it seems she is content with the knowledge that she will pass this feeling down to her daughter, who may eventually claim freedom for herself. Although this future doesn’t pan out, the very notion that Mabel stepped foot off the Randall plantation and was never seen again has

the intended effect; Cora is drawn to her mother’s legacy, motivated to discover the allure of freedom that compelled her to presumably abandon her own child. In the end, I think it can be argued that Mabel does find freedom, even if only for a brief moment. Whitehead writes: “...she stumbled onto the moss and it felt right. She said, Here, and the swamp swallowed her up” (301). This final declaration, “Here,” is the only chance Mabel gets in her lifetime to assert her own power - this is where she chooses to die, far from the bounds of the Randall plantation....