piranha answers “Does it depict much violence?”

Maryjane Peluso asked this question about The Underground Railroad:

Does it depict much violence?

piranha Yes, it contains a lot of violence, which is at it should be, because slaves were treated with much violence. However, the violence isn't gratuitous -…moreYes, it contains a lot of violence, which is at it should be, because slaves were treated with much violence. However, the violence isn't gratuitous -- no lovingly rendered violence porn like you might expect from a horror novel. It is also in many parts not very explicit (Cora's gang rape, for example, is not described as more than that she is "taken behind the shed"). But there are other parts where it is explicit (the killing of Big Anthony is described with enough detail to make me nauseated), though it is still never gratuitous, because the book doesn't dwell on it and we know these things really did happen, and so they must be depicted.

Even if you don't like reading about violence (I don't), I think it is important to read this book if most of your impressions of slavery stem from pretty depictions of the antebellum South -- because those are not the truth; they're only the fancy curtains drawn to hide a despicable time in American history. The violence seems to me in fact mostly downplayed because Cora depicts it as so matter of fact, with a low affect, that it becomes all the more chilling because in this day we would no longer countenance any of it, never mind viewing it as an everyday, inescapable part of life as Cora does.(less)

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The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead (Goodreads Author)

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