89 pages • 2 hours read
Julius LesterDay of Tears
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Henfield Plantation”
A year after the auction, Emma speaks about how she looks forward to every day after Joe finishes his work in the stable and comes in to help her clean the kitchen. Emma thinks about how Joe has gotten a job at the general store but is always back in time for supper. Emma talks to Joe about how their mistress asks after her wellbeing, and Emma admits that this plantation is less work: “But that don’t mean it’s better living here. It would be better if I could be with my mama and papa” (113). Emma admits she doesn’t know what she would do without Joe to remember all the people at the Butler plantation.
Joe asks Emma to marry him, but Emma doesn’t want her child to be born a slave. Joe suggests they escape, explaining that the general store owner, Mr. Henry, said that they were close to the Ohio River. At first, Joe was distrustful of him, but then Mr. Henry taught Joe the letter “a,” even though teaching a slave to read is illegal. Joe teaches Emma the letter, and Emma asks about freedom. They excitedly discuss Cincinnati, a free city, and Emma explains that Pierce and his wife had a falling out over her teaching slaves to read. They decide to trust Mr. Henry, and Emma agrees to marry and have kids with Joe if they escape. They discuss bringing Charles, his wife, and their new baby, although Emma is worried about Charles’s father, Sampson, telling their mistress. Joe explains that Charles wants his child to be free, and Emma finally relents, acknowledging that if she had a friend, she would want to bring him or her, too.
Interlude 8 Summary: “Sampson”
A mule kicks Sampson, injuring him. Bedridden, Sampson worries that Joe and Charles are up to something because Charles was happy a few nights ago. Sampson finds out that Joe has been working for Mr. Henry and remembers when Mr. Henry asked him about being free. Sampson remembers telling him how good slavery was for Black people and then kept his distance from Mr. Henry, although he didn’t tell anyone why. Sampson reflects on how good Mistress Henfield is to her slaves and suspects that Joe and Charles are planning to escape.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Charles and Sampson’s Cabin”
Charles and Sampson both pretend to be asleep while Charles fantasizes about being free, even though he is scared. He thinks about how his father always talks about how terrible freedom is, but Charles doesn’t think Sampson understands: “I just know my heart would feel a lot better if Mistress Henfield didn’t own me like she own her house and the mules and horses in her barn” (126). Charles decides that the likelihood of Henfield selling his family is greater than the uncertainty of freedom. However, he is ashamed of his fear because he thinks it makes him like his father, which worries him deeply.
Sampson regrets not telling Charles about his past, where he was a slave in Alabama whose owner would whip him for no reason. He tried to escape but ended up walking in a circle back to the plantation after a few days. The overseer dragged him behind his horse and then whipped him until the overseer’s arm was too tired, leaving him for dead on a tree. Mr. Henfield bought Sampson, who then promised to be good. Sampson argues that he knows how to play white people, implying that he, in fact, owns Henfield, which Charles doesn’t understand. Sampson worries that Charles will ruin the life Sampson has built.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Henfield Plantation Barn”
Emma worries that Charles and his family are taking too long, but Joe assures her that she’s just scared. Charles and his family appear, with the baby having been well-fed so that he’s quiet. Sampson enters, explaining that he was pretending to sleep. He reprimands his son for being ungrateful to Henfield. Charles maintains that Henfield isn’t nice enough to free them, but Sampson argues Charles knows nothing about freedom. Charles tries to leave, but Sampson blocks them, and Joe says that if they let Sampson go unharmed, he’ll run and tell Mistress Henfield. Charles apologizes to his father before punching him in the stomach, causing Sampson to drop his lamp. The barn catches fire, and the group escapes, with Joe pulling Charles away from screaming for his father.
Interlude 9 Summary: “Mistress Henfield as an Old Woman”
Mistress Henfield remembers the night the barn caught fire, thankful it was raining so she didn’t lose her livestock. She remembers the slaves finding Sampson passed out on the floor and assumes that he tried to prevent the fire. Mistress Henfield also assumes that Emma went to check on Ruth, but she finds Ruth alone. The next morning, she realizes that Emma and the group have escaped: “To this day I don’t understand how they could have betrayed me like that” (140). Out of spite, she sells the rest of her slaves and the plantation to the abusive Mr. Pendle and moves to New Orleans with Sampson and her daughter, who eventually marries a wealthy banker. When Mistress Henfield thinks of Emma and the slaves who escaped, she hopes they drowned while crossing the river or at least that they know the consequences for their running away, as she maintains that her selling the rest of her slaves was their fault.
Interlude 10 Summary: “Sampson as an Old Man”
Sampson hates being old because all he has are his memories, most of which concern the look of disgust on Charles’s face when he knocked Sampson to the ground. Sampson remembers being ashamed that his own son despised him, so he didn’t tell Mistress Henfield about the escape because he worried that Pendle would kill his grandchild if he found them. Mistress Henfield assumed the escapees set the fire as a distraction and does not believe Sampson knows more than he told her. Sampson wishes Charles knew that he did his part to help, wanting Charles to be proud of him more than anything else.
Chapter 11 Summary: “On the Road”
Emma, Charles, Joe, and Winnie run down the road under the rain. Charles worries that Mr. Henry tricked Joe, but Joe says to wait for three owl hoots. Charles suggests they go back, but Joe says Sampson probably told Mistress Henfield. Charles blames Joe for his situation, but Joe argues it was Charles’s choice. Emma thinks that “[i]t would be better if Charles would just admit he’s scared” (145), resolving to kill herself before she gets sold to Pendle. They see a light, which Charles worries is a ghost and Joe worries indicates patrollers. They hide until Joe sees Mr. Henry, who quickly ushers them into the wagon, telling them to pray that the boat from across the river is there, in spite of the storm. Emma knows everyone is worrying about what they’ll do if they don’t make it across the river that night. Winnie asks Emma to look at her baby, who has gone still. Emma looks but admits the baby is dead. Winnie laments her loss.
Interlude 11 Summary: “Jeremiah Henry”
Jeremiah drives like hell to the river, believing God helped lead him. He is surprised that the boat is there. Joe and Emma profusely thank Jeremiah, but Charles and Winnie seem almost dead. Days later, Mistress Henfield and Pendle come to Jeremiah’s store to ask questions about the escape, but Jeremiah lies, although not well. His entire point to move south was to help slaves escape. Mistress Henfield and Pendle explain their version of events, in which Joe set the barn on fire and tried to kill Sampson. Jeremiah feels responsible that he played a part in Sampson’s near death. Pendle spreads word that Jeremiah helped Joe escape, and Jeremiah’s business dries up, so he leaves before facing incarceration.
Chapters 8-11 Analysis
Chapters 8-11 correspond to the escape of Emma and Joe from the Henfield plantation. These chapters jump forward a year in time, and the narrative progresses quickly. As opposed to the previous chapters, which all deal with a single day—the last day of the auction—these chapters encompass multiple days and proceed along at a steady clip. It seems that once Emma and Joe have settled on achieving their freedom, their lives pass by much quicker, as opposed to the slave auction, which seemed as though the trauma associated with the sale slowed down time to a crawl. This temporal difference is similar to how humans perceive time: When something terrible happens—usually something outside of our control—it seems as though time slows down. Every second hurts. In contrast, once Emma and Joe happily conceive of the plan to escape, time passes by much quicker, heightening the readers’ anticipation. The author is careful not to break the dramatic tension of the escape, instead steadily increasing it through the placement of the interludes. On the night of the escape, there is no interlude between waiting for the escape and the escape itself, a technique employed to build dramatic tension.
This section also addresses unfavorable aspects of slave life and conditioning. One such aspect of slave life is the figure of Sampson, the slave who is incredibly subservient to white people and even, as he claims multiple times, thinks that slavery is the best thing to happen to Black people. Of course, this character’s complicity to the white supremacy of American slavery is contradictory to modern public opinion. However, the author knows this and so refuses to allow the demonization of Sampson. Instead, Lester sets out to force the readers to empathize, or, at the very least, sympathize with Sampson, providing the audience with Sampson’s highly traumatic background in which Mr. Henfield does appear as a kind of savior, at least from Sampson’s perspective. The audience then understands why Sampson might feel as though he can control white people because nothing about slavery was as bad as getting caught running away.
However, the author mitigates any inclination that the audience might have that the Henfields are “nice” slave owners. As Mattie said previously, a good enslaver does not exist. Mistress Henfield displays the reality of white supremacy when she purposefully sells her slaves to the meanest plantation owner around after Emma and Joe escape. In Mistress Henfield’s mind, all slaves are interchangeable with one another; therefore, if she believes that one commits a crime, all must pay. Even though Sampson repeatedly describes Mistress Henfield as “nice,” she exposes her own cruelty when she hopes that Emma and Joe drown in the river. Much like Pierce, Mistress Henfield refuses to take responsibility for her treatment of Black people; she argues that it is Emma’s fault that she sells the other slaves to the abusive Mr. Pendle. The reader can interpret her actions as a critique of modern white society, in which some refuse to reconcile privilege built upon the backs of slaves. Throughout the novel, white people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and instead blame others for their inhumanity toward Black people, a point readily made within the cruelty of Henfield in this section.
