Free Joe and the Rest Essay

Total Length: 392 words ( 1 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+



The title of the story suggests Joe's misery and estrangement from the rest of the world he knows and loves, namely his fellow African-Americans who are in bondage. No other free men are portrayed in the story, other than 'poor Joe,' and Joe makes no move to head to the North, to find other freed men and to seek an education or a job to buy his wife's freedom, as many slaves did in real life. Instead, he passively sits and pines for his wife Lucinda, but her master forbids the two of them to meet. When Joe disobeys him, her master sends Lucinda away, and Joe dies, waiting for her in their usual hiding place, a 'victim' of his freedom, the author implies.
Rather than portraying the man as cruel, Chandler suggests what is to blame is the fact that Joe is free, and lost without a wife or purpose in life. The story is a chilling example of the self-justifying logic of slave-owners.

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