Character and Structure in The Underground Railroad by Colton Whitehead

In my next installment of my graduate work, we’re exploring character and structure in the very popular book, The Underground Railraod by Colton Whitehead.

The Underground Railroad uses different character perspectives as a structure to weave the tale of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. The book is split into six sections with multiple chapters (in most cases) in each to tell the story. The challenge for the reader is to look for the connective threads throughout the story. Often these connective threads are easy to spot, and others are much more subtle and have to be found in the text. It often demonstrates, quite intentionally, how affected the lives of people are by the actions or the inaction of others. Through the book, we see each of the main characters and learn their backstory as they lived it rather than having it drawn out through narrative or dialogue. 

For example, when the slave catcher Ridgeway is introduced, it’s about time Cora is deciding to run with Caesar to the North. However, we don’t learn anything about his past until we get to the entire section devoted to how he became a slave catcher. This is a unique thread because Ridgeway and Cora are connected by their interaction with Mabel (Cora’s mother). They are also connected through the shared passion they have for the underground railroad. For Cora, it is a place of safety, freedom, and chosen family, and for Ridgeway, it is an enemy to be defeated. Caesar almost becomes a side character in this structure despite getting his own section of chapters about his life and their run north. 

The effect on the reader is that the story is experienced from very different perspectives, including that of the slave catcher Ridgeway. As the characters develop, we begin to see how they are all connected. There is a weaving of Cora, Mabel, the Randalls, and even the Andersons where everyone ends up connected, but it is not apparent due to the structure. This structure also leads the reader to become invested in different characters because we are often transported out of the main story, which is about Cora, and into the lives of the people involved in her drama. This is highly effective at giving us a full picture of the people involved but is jarring for the reader. 

However, considering the author lives to move about the timeline, this story structure can seem a bit disjointed at times.  For instance, Cora’s journey out of the Randall plantation has gotten quite a bit North by the time we flashback to her mother Mabel and her escape attempt and how that ties in with Ridgeway’s obsession with catching Cora. This all comes to a head at the very end when Ridgeway compares Cora to her mother. Although this is foreshadowed in the Georgia chapters and becomes a thread throughout the story, the structure of it all makes it a difficult thread to find and keep track. This is all the more difficult because it is the fuel that keeps Ridgeway going and leads to his eventual death, just short of getting his prize. In some ways, Cora becomes his white whale. 

It is interesting how we get very invested in Cora, and although these other storylines intrude and intersect, she is sort of the one guiding light that we can hang onto in most cases. However, in the areas of the book where she is less present or simply absent, it can be hard to keep track of all the threads. So it is often a comfort to rejoin Cora’s storyline. 

The introduction/first section of the book is also unique in this way. The author gives us the lineage of Cora at a quick pace of oppression and trauma. After that shock of an introduction, we are immediately dumped into Cora’s present life on the plantation and her loss of position and rank. The end of the book takes from the style of introduction by tying up the story quite quickly in just a few pages. Ridgeway fades from the page as Cora flees to freedom. It’s only a few moments of dialogue and internal thoughts from Cora that sort of ties everything together. The threads all come to a point in a fast-paced denouement. The structure sort of lends itself to this kind of finish because the reader already has much of the information. This has a double effect of tying up the threads while also creating dramatic tension. 

This structure is difficult to read and caused me to flip back and forth. I ended up marking all the sections out to reference different parts of the story and find all those threads that had been so carefully woven together. This is important to my work because I have two narratives happening in the same book with carefully laid threads, and it is vital to keep those threads obvious and easy for the reader to find. For example, while I don’t want to explore backstory in the same fashion, I realize that I could do some more backstory on some of the characters.