The Characters

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Williams uses multiple voices and perspectives to create characterization in Dessa Rose. Of the five principal characters, Harker is the least complexly developed. Like Dessa’s first husband, Kaine, who appears in the novel only in Dessa’s memories, Harker is presented chiefly through Dessa’s description of him. However, the crucial scene in which Harker convinces Dessa to participate in the risky scheme that will make their future possible is structured as a dramatized conversation in which readers, like Dessa, feel the force of Harker’s words.

Nathan is seen through the eyes of a number of other characters: Dessa, who initially trusts him implicitly but feels betrayed by his choice of a white woman; Harker, who in his conversation with Dessa defends Nathan’s right—and by implication the right of all the escaped slaves—to make free choices; and Ruth, who finds him the most honest adult companion she has ever had. Williams also includes a brief section in which Nathan’s thoughts are presented to explain the complex effect of Miz Lorraine’s demand for his sexual services on his sense of identity and self-esteem.

Adam Nehemiah’s history, ambitions, and assumptions are thoroughly developed in the section of the novel called “The Darky,” which begins with him as the focus of narrative point of view. Lengthy passages reproduce the language of the journal in which he records Dessa’s story, his own reflections, and the events of his interaction with “the darky.” His language reveals that speculation about sex between Dessa and her master stirs his lust for her, which he explains to himself as a desire for paternalistic control, in accordance with the precepts of his book. His last journal entry at the end of “The Darky” betrays him; he angrily denies the sheriff’s charge “that I acted like one possessed.” Williams represents Nehemiah’s loss of control over Dessa’s story through his disappearance from the narrative; when Nehemiah reappears in the last scenes of the novel, he is seen through Dessa’s eyes and in Dessa’s words as a “crazy white man” who “wasn’t too much bigger than me.” Even his name has shrunk—the Acropolis sheriff calls him “Nemi.” The sexual nature of his obsession is revealed by his lewd language to Dessa and by the sheriff’s reluctance to allow what he calls another “peep show.” Though the novel begins with Nehemiah’s effort to define Dessa, Dessa defines him at the end.

It is ironic that Nehemiah’s thoughts and language reveal more to a reader than the character understands about himself. However, when the author focuses on Ruth’s thoughts and experience in “The Wench,” the narrative depicts a character who, though ignorant and self-deluded in many ways, struggles toward understanding. While Nehemiah becomes smaller, Ruth grows up. Ruth too is characterized by multiple voices and perspectives: the critical gossip of the black women; Nathan’s teaching her to recognize his humanity as he recognizes hers; and Harker’s willingness to trust her. Most important, Ruth is characterized by her interaction with Dessa. In “The Wench,” the shifting narrative focus reveals their mistrust and misunderstanding of each other. In “The Negress,” narrated by Dessa, Ruth is characterized by an ambivalent progress in Dessa’s language, from “white woman” in the first sentence to “Ruth” and “friend” at the end of the book.

Dessa, of course, is the most complex character of the novel. All the other characters describe her, define her, or react to her in one way or another. Italicized stream-of-consciousness passages reproduce her dreams and memories; Nehemiah’s transcription records what he understands of her words; narration by the authorial voice describes her thoughts and experiences; and dramatized...

(This entire section contains 650 words.)

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scenes show her in action and conversation. Her assumption of first-person narration in “The Negress” and the epilogue demonstrates that her character has achieved self-definition.

The Characters

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Dessa and Rufel are significantly parallel. Both have names that suggest homelessness: “Odessa” implies an odyssey, and “Ruth” calls to mind the loyal but exiled kinswoman of the Old Testament. Like Dessa’s Kaine, Rufel shares a star-crossed love: Nathan, the leader of the coffle uprising, simultaneously assumes skilled administration of the farm and acquires an amorous section of her bed. Dessa gives birth to a son she names Desmond Kaine (Mony); Rufel nurses an infant daughter. Dessa mourns her lost mother; similarly, Rufel grieves for the mammy who loved her more palpably than did her own distant biological mother. Finally, both women struggle to exhume, acknowledge, and exterminate feelings of abandonment by loved ones. For Dessa, this encompasses family members “sold away” to purchase racehorses, livestock, and other trophies. For Rufel, these feelings center upon her husband Bertie, whose sporadic and shortening visits to the Glen point to his addiction to gambling.

Though both women express differences caused by chasms of race and power, both eventually acknowledge these differences, bridge them, and appreciate each other as intimates and individual beings. This forwards the novel’s suggestion that physical liberation from oppression is accomplished by mental liberation from self-destructive images and toxic memories.

Kaine and Adam Nehemiah are another matched pair. Their names, from the fractured family of Genesis (Adam, the first man, and his murdering son Cain), ironically suggest the ruptured bonds between blacks and whites in enslavement. Through their art, the characters underscore the futility that underlies obsession with loss: Kaine the musician constructs his banjo to remember an African past that he himself, allegedly fathered by a white man, never has nor will experience; Nemi the author forges his books on enslavement to gain entrance into an aristocracy that presently gives him faint respect. Both projects are silenced, Kaine’s when he is murdered, Nemi’s when Dessa’s second escape leaves him ragged and raging in the street. The two men’s struggles with personal histories of rejection and loss function as a metaphor for the fabricated histories that decline the dimensions—and dictate the decline—of slavery.

Ironically, the men’s common muse is Dessa. Dessa’s rebellion revives prospects of a lucrative sale of Nemi’s book, yet he relates to her as a nemesis. He inscribes her in his notes as a beast of woolly hair, impulsive temper, primitive expression, and devious intent. Kaine, on the other hand, sings and speaks to Dessa to demonstrate that she feels love and pain deeply. These relationships convey the complex impact of enslavement on black women. Nathan, Harker, and the community of other black men have been demeaned by enslavement. They favor light-skinned women and occasionally describe black women as mules. Yet the men do resist self-deprecatory images of enslavement. Tenaciously rebelling against the division and dehumanization of slave families, they offer themselves as surrogate fathers, brothers, and husbands, and they assert themselves as leaders and tacticians in the struggle for emancipation.

Characters Discussed

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Dessa Rose

Dessa Rose, an African American woman who experiences both gender and racial inequality. As a slave, she knows not only marginality but also extreme violence, danger, and cruelty. She is a strong person, determined not to surrender her life or her child’s life to slavery’s victimization. She leads a slave rebellion. As the story develops, Dessa enters an intimate relationship with another fugitive slave, Harker. She escapes to freedom in the West with Harker, her son, and their friends.

Ruth Elizabeth Carson

Ruth Elizabeth Carson (also known as Miz Rufel and Rufel), a white woman who harbors and provides strategic aid to runaway slaves. She becomes an ally and friend for Dessa Rose, her baby, and Dessa’s fellow escaped slaves. When she becomes involved in a sexual relationship with Nathan, one of those slaves, Dessa so disapproves of their union that she refers to Miz Rufel as “Miz Ruint.”

Adam Nehemiah

Adam Nehemiah, a white man who wishes to record the story of Dessa Rose’s rebellion on the Wilson coffle, to be included as a case in his next book on slave management and slave uprisings. He is ambitious, and he hopes that this new book, coupled with the success of his first book, will help him to establish a place in planter society. He is ill-equipped, however, for a match of wits with Dessa Rose. After she escapes from prison, he obsessively tracks her.

Nathan

Nathan and

Harker

Harker, two of the slaves who participate in the slave-coffle rebellion that nearly costs them their lives. While in hiding with Dessa Rose, these characters plan a brilliant deception that, with the assistance of Rufel, allows them to generate income by selling themselves back into slavery repeatedly, only to elude their prospective owners.

Kaine

Kaine, Dessa’s lover and the father of her child, who is brutally and senselessly murdered before the events in the novel. Through memories and flashbacks, readers learn of him as a strong man, a tender partner to Dessa, and an ongoing inspiration to her struggle to resist slavery and escape its injustices.

List of Characters

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Ada
Ada is a fugitive slave living on Rufel Sutton’s plantation. She works closely with Rufel and helps bring Dessa back to health after childbirth.
Aunt Chole
A stern, old black woman who answers a request by Sheriff to inspect Dessa’s body for scarring and branding marks, as described by Adam Nehemiah as he tries to capture Dessa. Aunt Chole listens carefully to Dessa during the ordeal and says she has seen nothing on her. Then she exits the cell.
Adam Nehemiah (Nemi)
Nehemiah is recording information about slave uprisings in his account entitled “The Roots of Rebellion in the Slave Population and Some Means of Eradicating Them.” Nehemiah interviews Dessa just after the Wilson Rebellion and before she is to be hanged.
Aunt Lefonia
One of the older female slaves on the Steele plantation, Aunt Lefonia guides the younger slaves. She also performs abortions to keep the woman from “breeding.”
Bertie Sutton
Bertie is the Master of the Sutton plantation and husband of Rufel or Ruth Sutton. He is known to be a gambler although he claims he is gone ‘trading.’
Boss Smith
He is the overseer on the Steele plantation. Dessa notes the great paleness of his skin and how over the spring and summer turns a shade closer to her skin color. He is known for keeping the slaves in line with his whip.
Dessa
Dessa is the namesake and main character in the novel. She attacks a white man, Master Steele, after he has killed Kaine, her love and father of her baby. Dessa is sold to a brutal trader named Wilson. She is placed in a coffle and leads an uprising against him in order to escape.
Harker
He meets Dessa on the Wilson coffle. Dessa falls in love with Harker. He helps to plan the scam to sell themselves into slavery as part of a plot to earn money.
Kaine
He is a slave on the Steele plantation who has a great love of music. He plays a banjo skillfully and often entertains the white people on the plantation. Dessa is pregnant with Kaine’s baby.
Linda
She is part of the coffle that Trader Wilson is transporting to market. She uses a rock to hit the guard, which begins the Wilson Rebellion.
Mammy (Dorcas)
She organizes the slave community at Sutton plantation and is like a mother to Rufel.
Nathan
Nathan is a charismatic, big, and strong slave who befriends Dessa on the Wilson coffle. Nathan and Harker develop the plan to sell themselves into slavery as a scam to earn money.
Rufel (Miz Lady, Ruth Sutton)
Rufel a white woman who provides safety the runaway slaves. She becomes a friend for Dessa, her baby, and Dessa’s fellow escaped slaves.
Sheriff Hughes
The Sheriff who takes Dessa from the jail after Wilson Rebellion to his farm so that Dessa can be near his cook, a midwife.

Characters

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Dessa
Dessa is the main character in the novel and she is portrayed with several different voices. At the beginning of the novel, we hear her unique dialect and tone as she fondly recalls a tender and sweet moment with Kaine, her love and father of her baby. Dessa is a complex character who is referred to as a “devil woman” and has sustained a great deal of brutality for her young age. She is a teenager who has been whipped many times and also branded. Her life on Steele Plantation included a community of slaves and her love, Kaine, with whom she became pregnant. Kaine’s love for Dessa is a tender story of their efforts to share time and a live together amid the circumstances of slavery. Kaine’s talent and love for music is expressed through his banjo, which he constructed himself. After this valuable instrument is destroyed, Kaine attacks the Master and Kaine is killed. In response, Dessa attacks the Master and is sold to the Trader Wilson. In the Wilson Rebellion, Dessa also attacks Wilson. The pregnant Dessa is captured, convicted and sentenced to be executed. Her escape to Rufel’s plantation is chaotic after she gives birth. Dessa develops a unlikely friendship with Rufel, a white woman.
Kaine
Kaine is the love of Dessa and the father of Dessa’s baby. Kaine is a talented and charismatic black man. He tries to persuade Dessa to not have their baby because he does not want a child born into slavery. This wish is likely to be what drives Dessa to escape from slavery at any cost. Kaine’s voice, music, and story are only told as memories of Dessa in the story, as he has died before the events of the story take place.
Rufel (Ruth Sutton)
Rufel is a white woman living on a farm in Northern Alabama. She has been abandoned by her slave-owning husband. Dessa and her fellow slaves arrive on Rufel’s plantation. Rufel is struck by the ashen color of Dessa’s skin and hears the sound of a baby. She provides a safe haven for them. At first, she and Dessa experience a great tension, as neither one trusts the other. Rufel starts a relationship with Nathan, one of the slaves, and Dessa becomes jealous and frustrated at this union. Over time, the two women develop a friendship. At one point on their journey, they meet a man named Mr. Oscar and stay at his home. Rufel and Mr. Oscar drink too much and they end the evening in Rufel’s bedroom, but Rufel is uncomfortable with this turn of events. As Dessa is passing her bedroom, she calls for Dessa. When Dessa enters the room, she sees Rufel’s situation and helps to get him out of the room by hitting him with pillows. This scene is comical; however, for Dessa it represents the vulnerability of white women, an idea that she had not considered before. This even draws the two women closer together. Rufel shows considerable fortitude when she agrees to participate in a money-making scheme involving the false sale of her new slave companions. They travel together and form uncommon bonds. Rufel travels East at the end of the story, while he slave companions go West.
Nathan
Nathan is one of the runaway slaves that befriends Dessa. He, Harker, and Scully serve as a form of protection for Dessa as they transport her to the Sutton Plantation. Harker and Nathan do odd chores about the property and are permitted to stay. Nathan develops a relationship with Rufel, which upsets Dessa. This relationship with Rufel keeps the peace and also eases the negotiations for the scheme. Since he was fifteen, he has been the taken in by white women in relationships. Charismatic and clever, Nathan and Harker develop a money-making scheme to sell (and re-sell) themselves to slaveholders. Nathan is also incredibly strong and stops a runaway wagon with such impressive skills that a slaveholder asks to buy him immediately.
Harker
Harker is a fellow runaway slave that Dessa meets on the slave coffle. Harker falls in love with Dessa. He also helps develop the money-making scheme with Nathan. Harker admires Dessa’s courage. Dessa expresses her love for Nathan to Harker. Harker’s words and actions help to heal Dessa so that she falls in love with Harker. As a group, the fugitive slaves travel West after leaving Rufel.
Adam Nehemiah(Nemi)
Adam is recording events of various slave uprisings and selling them to slaveholders. His current project is “The Roots of Rebellion in the Slave Population & Some Means of Eradicating Them.” Nehemiah coaxes little information out of Dessa initially as he interviews her following her capture. He appears at the end of the novel when Dessa is with Rufel and the other fugitive slaves. He recognizes Dessa instantly and succeeds in having her brought to the jail and the sheriff. Nehemiah (Nemi) becomes frustrated and nearly loses his mind when Dessa is released from the jail with Rufel.
Sheriff Hughes
He moves Dessa from the jail to the cellar on his farm. The cook on his land serves also as a midwife. He is to hold Dessa there until she has her baby, after which point she is to be hanged. She and Hughes are tense immediately. Hughes strikes Dessa after he detects a “flicker” in her eye. He quickly regrets the action and yet punishes her further. He gives her no food and only salt water. Hughes allows Nehemiah to interview Dessa for his work. To accommodate this, he moves Dessa out to the yard where he chains her to a tree.
Aunt Lefonia
On the subject of the breeding on Steele Plantation, Aunt Lefonia has much information and skill to contribute. She can perform abortions for the women to offset the number of pregnancies resulting from white men raping black slaves. The women on the plantation are valuable for the purpose of producing more slaves. After they produce children, they are often sold. Aunt Lefonia tries to convince Steele that a small slave girl should not be carrying a large white man’s child for fear of what it might do to her health. Master Steele is undeterred.
Robert Steele
He is the Master on Steele Plantation. He breaks Kaine’s banjo, which causes Kaine to attack him with a hoe. Master Steele kills Kaine with a shovel. Dessa attacks Master Steele. The Steele Plantation often uses the female slaves to produce more slaves, and sells the female slaves off after they have produced children. Dessa works in Master Steele’s fields.
Linda
Linda is one of the fugitive slaves on the slave coffle. She plays an important role in the Wilson Rebellion. The slaves had planned a peaceful take-over including taking the guards guns and leaving them peacefully. As they were on their way to market for many days, Linda is the object of one of the guards, who rapes her every night in the bushes. He is an alcoholic and often drunk during these events. On one particular evening, he neglects to lock her back into the chain and is loose. She strikes the guard with the rock. Dessa says, “then all hell broke loose.” Their plans for an escape go awry but they get away.

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