Oppression weighed down the two heroines in Sue Monk Kidd’s latest novel, “The Invention of Wings.” At times that oppression was so heavy that it almost defeated them, but very slowly that weight grew lighter and lighter as they fought their way out of the constraints society set for them, and they began to soar.
The novel opens in Charleston in 1803. We already know from the place and the year that we are in the time of slavery. We meet Sarah Grimké on her 11th birthday and the slave that was given to her on that birthday – Hetty or Handful as her mother called her. Hetty and Sarah are the roughly the same age. Sarah, however, wanted no part of this gift, and made it perfectly clear to her parents and to Hetty.
Sarah considered herself an abolitionist and wouldn’t think of owning a slave. Her parents had a different idea and made her accept the gift. In defiance of her parents’ rules and in defiance of South Carolina law, Sarah taught Hetty to read and write while Hetty was her personal servant. It was the only option Sarah felt she had to help Hetty. It would prove to be yet another indicator of how oppressed the girls were, in different ways, and the severe punishment inflicted for breaking with the established laws.
After the girls’ punishment it became clear to both of them that they could not be friends. Hetty felt that Sarah’s oppression wasn’t even close to hers, and it marked a turning point in their idealist ideas about how they would live their lives. Both girls would continue to try to make their lives better in a way they could accept, on their terms. But the road was very difficult.
Sarah changes her focus to her new born sister, Angelina. Sarah and Angelina were more like mother and child. Sarah leaves Charleston to care for her ailing father and eventually ends up in Philadelphia. She leaves behind her old life for a new one in the Quaker community. Angelina will eventually join her sister, and together they would begin to start the seeds of change, not just about slavery, but also women’s rights.
As with any book on slavery the punishments are hard to fathom, why anyone would want to hurt someone else in such egregious ways. Hetty has a particularly awful punishment at the Work House, due mostly to Sarah’s mother’s cruelty. Hetty and Sarah will grow despite society’s constraints.
This is a great book for book clubs. It is an historical fiction. The Grimké girls were crusading for emancipation of slaves and for racial equality and did write “American Slavery As It Is,” in 1839. The story lets the readers feel just how oppressed women were. The book will provide lots of discussion for book clubs, like Sarah’s choice between independence and marriage, could she have both? And, discussions regarding the North and the South and their ideologies, the difference in generations, the difference in the religious beliefs (allowing slavery), and just how far women have progressed.
Definitely worth the read!
Rating: 8.5