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Discrimination and Failure to Acknowledge Common Humanity
Dick has a skewed and discriminatory view of Grandison that makes him fail to see how they have similar motivations. Readers who catch on early to Grandison’s persuasive performance as a grateful slave may wonder why the Owens accept his play-acting as truth. Yet the story suggests an explanation in its parallel love stories. Grandison’s love for Betty is quietly embedded in the story of Dick’s attempts to win Charity’s love. As Dick tries plan after plan to get Grandison to take his chance for freedom, Dick attributes Grandison’s refusal to various motives. He assumes, at various points, that Grandison is stupid, unimaginative, or fearful. Not once does Dick suspect the real reason: Grandison won’t abandon the woman he loves. Dick can’t see past his discriminatory assessment of Grandison to intuit that they are both motivated by love.
Dick’s failure to understand this commonality demonstrates that he considers Grandison less than fully human. This bias shows up in other ways as well. For example, when Dick finds Grandison sleeping by the falls in Canada, Dick feels “great disgust” with this man who can sleep, “oblivious” to the scenery and to the “voice of sentiment.” He assumes that Grandison simply can’t appreciate the “grandeur” of nature and the value of freedom, as Dick can. But again, Dick underestimates Grandison because he is Black. Discrimination prevents Dick from valuing Grandison for the intelligent, loving, fully human person he is.
Necessary Deceits and Incomplete Truths
Because the story’s characters occupy such different social ranks in the antebellum South, it is difficult for them to communicate honestly. This is true of the wealthy white characters, but even more so for the enslaved Black characters.
Readers see this hesitation to communicate clearly when Dick lies about why he wants to travel north. He can’t tell his father that he plans to free one of his slaves, nor can he explain that he wants to do it to win Charity’s love. Instead, he “casually” mentions feeling “a trifle run down,” manipulating his indulgent father to get what he wants. Dick also lies by omission to Grandison during their travels. Again, he can’t be honest, even though both characters want the same thing, without risking legal trouble for both. When Dick comes home, he tells his father a “truthful story, so far as it went,” letting Grandison and nameless abolitionists take the blame for Grandison’s absence.
But the more elaborate and necessary deceit is the long game that Grandison is forced to play, in ways that require him to abase himself. He must lie to convince the colonel that he is “abolitionist-proof,” pretend that he’s better off than the free Black men in New York, and feign that he fears the people who approach him in Boston. When he gets back to the plantation, he must invent an outlandish story to excuse his absence and to set the colonel’s mind at ease about his loyalty. Anyone in his family who knows about his efforts must keep his secrets as well. As people utterly oppressed and unfree, they must deceive to survive.
What People Will Do for Love
The narrator begins the story by stating two axioms. First, any action can be explained if a man does it to please a woman. And second, if there is anything a man won’t do to please a woman, no one knows what that might be. To restate these axioms in a less gendered way: there is no limit to what people will do for love. The story explores this theme through efforts of Dick and Grandison and expands it to include what people will do for love of family, friends, and fellow humans.
Dick’s attempt to free a slave is motivated by his desire to win Charity’s approval. At first glance, this motivation seems romantic and benign. However, when compared to other forms of love expressed in the story, it becomes clear that his love is selfish. Dick doesn’t care about the man he plans to “run off,” so he doesn’t object when Colonel Owens insists that Grandison, not Tom, go with him. For his purposes, one man is as good as another. Similarly, when Dick returns, Charity doesn’t ask about the newly freed man. Instead, she frets that Dick might have been caught and that Dick is a wasteful man with “negroes to throw away.” Both Dick and Charity are self-centered in their love for each other.
By contrast, the high risks faced by Grandison make his love story heroic. Whereas Dick worries about “embarrassment” if he’s caught, Grandison could pay with his life, and those he loves may suffer as well. Grandison is especially in danger as he travels back to Kentucky and as he leads his family to Canada. The narrator doesn’t reveal Grandison’s concerns, but readers with any historical knowledge of slavery, slave hunters, and the underground railroad grasp the risk to him, his family, and any who help them along the way.
