The Legacy of Slavery in the American South

Dana Franklin’s position in the novel as a Black woman reckoning with her white heritage is a literalization of a situation that is incredibly common in the Black American experience: through time travel, she is forced to bear witness to the violation of her Black ancestors by her white ancestors, putting a visceral point on the actuality of many Black Americans’ family trees. Slave owners raping or coercing sex from enslaved women was standard practice in the American South, and children that resulted were in a precarious liminal position as legally both slaves and potential heirs. This violence was further codified through laws and social mores that protected slave owners and ignored their indiscretions with Black enslaved women as an unseemly but normal part of life. Alice’s story is a depiction of the harrowing emotional conflict that most people in America (particularly white Americans) think of as settled history, and Dana serves as witness to all of this in order to dramatize what Black Americans must face when looking into their personal ancestry.

In this way, Dana’s journeys back in time serve as a representation of the psychic trauma that Black people struggle with as they think about their role in America and their legacy as the descendants of both enslaved people and slave owners.