144 pages • 4 hours read
Colson WhiteheadThe Underground Railroad
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A 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.
Themes
The American Imperative: The Theft of Indigenous Land and the Enslavement of Black Bodies
Contrary to ideologically propagandistic renderings of the origins of America, Whitehead asserts that it is not lofty ideals of freedom for all nor the underdog’s escape from persecution, religious or otherwise, that are at the root of the American story. Instead, in a far cry from the romanticized notion of America as the land of the free, home of the brave, savior of the battered horde, Whitehead presents us with an America that is ceaselessly violent, corrupt, oppressive, and rotten at its core.
This theme is most prominently displayed through the character of Ridgeway, who proclaims this truth repeatedly and without qualification. Ridgeway can be seen as a kind of American emissary. Naked in his proclamations that the white man is entitled to steal Indigenous lands, massacre Indigenous peoples, and enslave Africans to force them to generate profits that only the white man will enjoy, Ridgeway does not sugarcoat the deep brutality, entitlement, and shameless greed that is the true impetus of the “American Spirit.”
This theme is also iterated in Lumbly’s memorable quote, which is repeated at various times throughout the narrative. Before Cora boards 
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By Colson Whitehead
