Summary Of The Book 'Roots' By Alex Haley: Roots
Alex Haley: Roots
Contents Page
Contents 2
1. Introduction 3
2. Alex Haley: Roots 4
3. Dialogue between Kunta and his father 5
4. Kunta’s thoughts 7
5. Summary 8
Omoro said that three groups of people lived in a village. First were those you could see – walking around, eating, sleeping, and working. Second were the ancestors, whom Grandma Yaisa had now joined.
“And the third people – who are they?” asked Kunta.
“The third people,” said Omoro, “are those waiting to be born.”
1. Introduction
My essay deals with Alex Haley’s book ROOTS , which was written in 1976. In this essay I will only write about Kunta Kinte, his life and his family. First I will give a short summary of the story. After that I will describe a dialogue between …show more content…
Kunta and his father and a situation, where Kunta is brought away as a slave. I think these two passages are very interesting to get some impressions.
Alex Haley was born in 1921 in Ithaca, New York, and died in 1992. He was an African-American author, whose contributions to American letters led to the popularization of Black history and helped to get an idea of the racial understanding.
In 1976 Alex Haley began to work on the family saga, Roots, which got immediately successful. Almost 9 million copies were sold, and it has been translated into 26 languages. Roots recounted the story of Haley’s search for his ancestors and triumphantly recorded his tracing of his lineage back to a West African village. Alex Haley used his imagination to fill in the details of the family story. After reading Haley’s book, lots of black Americans wanted to find out their background.
There is one interesting aspect which Alex Haley points out in his book, in the passage where he his the main character: “In the years of the writing, I have also spoken before many audiences of how Roots came to be, naturally now and then someone asks, ‘How much of Roots is fact and how much is fiction?’ To the best of my knowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within Roots is from either my African or my American families carefully preserved oral history, much of which I have been conventionally to corroborate with documents. (…) Since I wasn’t yet around when most of the story occurred, by far most of the dialogue and most of the incidents are of necessity a novelized amalgam of what I know took place together with what my researching led me to plausibly feel took place.”
2. Roots – a short summary
The story starts in Juffure, a small peaceful village in West Africa, the Gambia, in 1750, and ends in Gambia, in the same village, after several generations. The whole action starts with Kunta Kinte, who was born to Omoro, a Mandinka tribesman and his wife Binta Kinte.
Alex Haley uses many African words in this book to describe the everyday life of this community, where Muslims live. This life sees young boys like Kunta being groomed to manhood training with lessons of hunting, protecting their families, and subscribing to codes of honor under the strict supervision of village elders. Every boy “had heard that a full twelve moons would pass before third-kafo boys would return to the village – but then as men.”
Years go by and Kunta also hears people talking about “toubob”, who are described as white people.
Kunta is very interested in these men and wants to know everything about them. “He wished, that he could see one of them – from a safe distance, of course.” People in Juffure tell about tribesmen, who disappeared and never came back. At the age of 17, while Kunta is on sentry duty and looking for wood he is ambushed by four slave catchers. Although he fights back, he cannot escape and is brought to a ship. This is the beginning of a horrifying sea voyage. The trip is terrible. The slaves are chained on each other and lie in their excrement in the dark. The situation is horrible. “The urine, vomit, and feces that reeked everywhere around him had spread into a slick paste covering the hard planking of the long shelves on which they lay.”
Once or twice a week, the whites bring them up to the deck in chains in order to clean the hold. Also so slaves managed to talk to each other in different languages they cannot overpower the whites. This attrition rate was typical for slave ships of the time, similar to the situation we saw in the movie
‘amistad’.
At a slave auction, Kunta is bought for $850 by Master John Waller, the owner of a plantation. Kunta gets the name ‘Toby’. “You – you Toby! Kunta didn’t understand, as his face showed it. (…) Massa, say you name Toby.” Kunta assigned to work as a field laborer on Massa Waller’s plantation. Kunta/Toby attempts to escape four times over the next four years and is punished, each time more hardly than the last. Unlike the American-born blacks on the plantation, who are not able to read or write and are treated more like children than adults, Toby can read, write, and speak fluent Arabic.
3. Dialogue between Kunta and his father
Kunta and his father have got an interesting dialogue when Kunta is still very young. The dialogue is about, what slaves are (in their county: the Gambia) and why. Kunta is talking to Omoro, while Kunta is asking question, and Omoro is giving the answers. Omoro is working through the dialogue. The originally reason for Kunta’s questions is the question of his younger brother Lamin. Lamin always asks lots of question and wants Kunta to give him an answer to everything. “Kunta had never realized how much he knew – but now and then Lamin asked something of which Kunta knew nothing at all.” One day Lamin asks Kunda what slaves are. “Kunta knew that those who were taken by toubob became slaves, and he had overheard grown-ups taking about slaves, and he had overheard grown-ups talking about slaves who were owned by people in Juffure. But the fact was the he really didn’t know what slaves were.” As often Kunta wanted to find the answer to Lamin’s question and one day he asks his father: “Fa, what are slaves?” Kunta’s questions are very clear and intelligent: “Why are some people slaves and others not?” He asks frankly from the heart and he wants to know, why the things are that way, and not another. Kunta Kinte’s way of asking also shows his way of living: he is living in old traditions, he is fulfilling the tasks of a boy of his age and he is the firstborn of the family, too. Omoro is answering in the same way - very clear: “But one should never speak of slaves in the presence of slaves.” He wants to explain everything really specific. “They become slaves, being not brave enough to die rather than be taken.” He explains things in traditions. What Omoro says in his sentences, goes through the whole book. He says that the white people speak of slaves in the presence of slaves. This is a black way of thinking that is transmitted on white people.
What Omoro says in the second sentence shows the common picture of the brave black bushman. It intents that Omoro would rather die than to be captured. And that is also, what he expects from Kunta, and his younger brothers Lamin, because they are male. In this dialogue the reader gets lots of information of Blacks thoughts. The dialogue also shows the relation between Kunta and his father, and the hierarchy within the family and the village community. Kunta always waits for the right moment to ask his father. The Kintes are an important family with very important forefathers in this community and Omoro, as the head of the family, has the function of an example. He has to carry on the traditions of his people. The function, the dialogue has here, is to show how blacks in Africa treated their slaves, and how slaves became slaves. It is also a characterization of the young Kunta and his father. Later on Omoro also explains the differences between slaves. “It is the difference between slaves among ourselves and those whom toubob takes way to be slaves for him.” Kunta gets an idea of the definition of slaves. Omoro warns his son: “But even a king cannot stop the stealing of some people from their villages (…) Never be out at night when you can help it. And day or night, when you’re alone, keep away from any high weeds or bush if you can avoid it.” Omoro wants to make clear that the white people are very dangerous. Kunta understood and “sat frozen with fear.”
4. Kunta’s thoughts while being captured
This part deals with the situation, when Kunta is captured by toubob. By now Kunta is 17 years old. He is on sentry duty and wants to find some wood. While he is walking through the bush he hears sound, but doesn’t know what it is. And then, “in a blur, rushing at him, he saw a white face, a club upraised; heard heavy footfalls behind him. Toubob!” Kunta is very afraid and wants to flee. But the white men are stronger and are able to overpower Kunta. The young man doesn’t know what to do. He even twits himself: “Why had he not heard them sensed them, smelled them?” Kunta thinks he could have done something against it, although he is wrong. He also wonders that this could have a sin. “What sins was he being punished for in such a manner as this? He pleaded to Allah for an answer. (…) He closed his eyes where he lay and prayed, beseeching Allah’s forgiveness.”
One of Kunta’s first thoughts is that he will maybe never see his family and his country again. He knows that if he does not get out of this situation he will have a completely different life. “His head ready to explode, his body reeling, raging at his won weakness, Kunta reared up and roared, flailing blindly at the air, everything blurred with tears and blood and sweat. He was fighting for more that his life now. Omoro! Binta! Lamin! Suwadu! Madi!” Kunta heard lots of stories about slaves. But he still does not really know that he is captured by white men to become a slave for other people.
When Kunta wakes up after a while he does not know where he is. “Naked chained, shackled, he awoke on is back between two other men in a pitch darkness full of steamy heat and sickening stink and a nightmarish bedlam of shrieking, weeping, praying, and vomiting.” The situation he is in is horrible. There are also lots of rats. Because it is dark Kunta does not know if he is alone or not. He feels “like a leopard in a snare” and it is hard for him to stay at one place the whole time: “The worst thing was that he couldn’t move.” The whole situation is terrible for Kunta. He and the other slaves, who were chosen to be sold as slaves get something to eat one time a day. It is called “feeding time.” Also the hygiene situation is really bad. All of the people are in on little room, unable to move. “The urine, vomit, and feces that reeked everywhere around him had spread into a slick paste covering the hard planking of the long shelves on which they lay.”
Kunta wants to be strong, but he is terrified because he never knows why something is happening. “With flashing terror e realized that the toubob were releasing him. Why? What terrible thing was going to happen now?”
5. Summary
Haley’s book has lots of interesting passages. This essay just deals with two little passages, where you get an idea of what slaves were at that time. The dialogue shows us what he black people thought about the slaves. Omoro represents his opinion and tells Kunta everything he knows about slaves.
Kunta is still young when he gets to know all this things, but just some years later he is one of the blacks who are captured by toubobs. In the second chosen passage the reader can get a little idea of what is was like to become a slave. Nobody really knows when they haven’t been slaves, but the book shows that is was a horrible situation for the blacks. With Kunta’s thoughts the reader gets lots of interesting and important impressions.
Contents Page
Contents 2
1. Introduction 3
2. Alex Haley: Roots 4
3. Dialogue between Kunta and his father 5
4. Kunta’s thoughts 7
5. Summary 8
Omoro said that three groups of people lived in a village. First were those you could see – walking around, eating, sleeping, and working. Second were the ancestors, whom Grandma Yaisa had now joined.
“And the third people – who are they?” asked Kunta.
“The third people,” said Omoro, “are those waiting to be born.”
1. Introduction
My essay deals with Alex Haley’s book ROOTS , which was written in 1976. In this essay I will only write about Kunta Kinte, his life and his family. First I will give a short summary of the story. After that I will describe a dialogue between …show more content…
Kunta and his father and a situation, where Kunta is brought away as a slave. I think these two passages are very interesting to get some impressions.
Alex Haley was born in 1921 in Ithaca, New York, and died in 1992. He was an African-American author, whose contributions to American letters led to the popularization of Black history and helped to get an idea of the racial understanding.
In 1976 Alex Haley began to work on the family saga, Roots, which got immediately successful. Almost 9 million copies were sold, and it has been translated into 26 languages. Roots recounted the story of Haley’s search for his ancestors and triumphantly recorded his tracing of his lineage back to a West African village. Alex Haley used his imagination to fill in the details of the family story. After reading Haley’s book, lots of black Americans wanted to find out their background.
There is one interesting aspect which Alex Haley points out in his book, in the passage where he his the main character: “In the years of the writing, I have also spoken before many audiences of how Roots came to be, naturally now and then someone asks, ‘How much of Roots is fact and how much is fiction?’ To the best of my knowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within Roots is from either my African or my American families carefully preserved oral history, much of which I have been conventionally to corroborate with documents. (…) Since I wasn’t yet around when most of the story occurred, by far most of the dialogue and most of the incidents are of necessity a novelized amalgam of what I know took place together with what my researching led me to plausibly feel took place.”
2. Roots – a short summary
The story starts in Juffure, a small peaceful village in West Africa, the Gambia, in 1750, and ends in Gambia, in the same village, after several generations. The whole action starts with Kunta Kinte, who was born to Omoro, a Mandinka tribesman and his wife Binta Kinte.
Alex Haley uses many African words in this book to describe the everyday life of this community, where Muslims live. This life sees young boys like Kunta being groomed to manhood training with lessons of hunting, protecting their families, and subscribing to codes of honor under the strict supervision of village elders. Every boy “had heard that a full twelve moons would pass before third-kafo boys would return to the village – but then as men.”
Years go by and Kunta also hears people talking about “toubob”, who are described as white people.
Kunta is very interested in these men and wants to know everything about them. “He wished, that he could see one of them – from a safe distance, of course.” People in Juffure tell about tribesmen, who disappeared and never came back. At the age of 17, while Kunta is on sentry duty and looking for wood he is ambushed by four slave catchers. Although he fights back, he cannot escape and is brought to a ship. This is the beginning of a horrifying sea voyage. The trip is terrible. The slaves are chained on each other and lie in their excrement in the dark. The situation is horrible. “The urine, vomit, and feces that reeked everywhere around him had spread into a slick paste covering the hard planking of the long shelves on which they lay.”
Once or twice a week, the whites bring them up to the deck in chains in order to clean the hold. Also so slaves managed to talk to each other in different languages they cannot overpower the whites. This attrition rate was typical for slave ships of the time, similar to the situation we saw in the movie
‘amistad’.
At a slave auction, Kunta is bought for $850 by Master John Waller, the owner of a plantation. Kunta gets the name ‘Toby’. “You – you Toby! Kunta didn’t understand, as his face showed it. (…) Massa, say you name Toby.” Kunta assigned to work as a field laborer on Massa Waller’s plantation. Kunta/Toby attempts to escape four times over the next four years and is punished, each time more hardly than the last. Unlike the American-born blacks on the plantation, who are not able to read or write and are treated more like children than adults, Toby can read, write, and speak fluent Arabic.
3. Dialogue between Kunta and his father
Kunta and his father have got an interesting dialogue when Kunta is still very young. The dialogue is about, what slaves are (in their county: the Gambia) and why. Kunta is talking to Omoro, while Kunta is asking question, and Omoro is giving the answers. Omoro is working through the dialogue. The originally reason for Kunta’s questions is the question of his younger brother Lamin. Lamin always asks lots of question and wants Kunta to give him an answer to everything. “Kunta had never realized how much he knew – but now and then Lamin asked something of which Kunta knew nothing at all.” One day Lamin asks Kunda what slaves are. “Kunta knew that those who were taken by toubob became slaves, and he had overheard grown-ups taking about slaves, and he had overheard grown-ups talking about slaves who were owned by people in Juffure. But the fact was the he really didn’t know what slaves were.” As often Kunta wanted to find the answer to Lamin’s question and one day he asks his father: “Fa, what are slaves?” Kunta’s questions are very clear and intelligent: “Why are some people slaves and others not?” He asks frankly from the heart and he wants to know, why the things are that way, and not another. Kunta Kinte’s way of asking also shows his way of living: he is living in old traditions, he is fulfilling the tasks of a boy of his age and he is the firstborn of the family, too. Omoro is answering in the same way - very clear: “But one should never speak of slaves in the presence of slaves.” He wants to explain everything really specific. “They become slaves, being not brave enough to die rather than be taken.” He explains things in traditions. What Omoro says in his sentences, goes through the whole book. He says that the white people speak of slaves in the presence of slaves. This is a black way of thinking that is transmitted on white people.
What Omoro says in the second sentence shows the common picture of the brave black bushman. It intents that Omoro would rather die than to be captured. And that is also, what he expects from Kunta, and his younger brothers Lamin, because they are male. In this dialogue the reader gets lots of information of Blacks thoughts. The dialogue also shows the relation between Kunta and his father, and the hierarchy within the family and the village community. Kunta always waits for the right moment to ask his father. The Kintes are an important family with very important forefathers in this community and Omoro, as the head of the family, has the function of an example. He has to carry on the traditions of his people. The function, the dialogue has here, is to show how blacks in Africa treated their slaves, and how slaves became slaves. It is also a characterization of the young Kunta and his father. Later on Omoro also explains the differences between slaves. “It is the difference between slaves among ourselves and those whom toubob takes way to be slaves for him.” Kunta gets an idea of the definition of slaves. Omoro warns his son: “But even a king cannot stop the stealing of some people from their villages (…) Never be out at night when you can help it. And day or night, when you’re alone, keep away from any high weeds or bush if you can avoid it.” Omoro wants to make clear that the white people are very dangerous. Kunta understood and “sat frozen with fear.”
4. Kunta’s thoughts while being captured
This part deals with the situation, when Kunta is captured by toubob. By now Kunta is 17 years old. He is on sentry duty and wants to find some wood. While he is walking through the bush he hears sound, but doesn’t know what it is. And then, “in a blur, rushing at him, he saw a white face, a club upraised; heard heavy footfalls behind him. Toubob!” Kunta is very afraid and wants to flee. But the white men are stronger and are able to overpower Kunta. The young man doesn’t know what to do. He even twits himself: “Why had he not heard them sensed them, smelled them?” Kunta thinks he could have done something against it, although he is wrong. He also wonders that this could have a sin. “What sins was he being punished for in such a manner as this? He pleaded to Allah for an answer. (…) He closed his eyes where he lay and prayed, beseeching Allah’s forgiveness.”
One of Kunta’s first thoughts is that he will maybe never see his family and his country again. He knows that if he does not get out of this situation he will have a completely different life. “His head ready to explode, his body reeling, raging at his won weakness, Kunta reared up and roared, flailing blindly at the air, everything blurred with tears and blood and sweat. He was fighting for more that his life now. Omoro! Binta! Lamin! Suwadu! Madi!” Kunta heard lots of stories about slaves. But he still does not really know that he is captured by white men to become a slave for other people.
When Kunta wakes up after a while he does not know where he is. “Naked chained, shackled, he awoke on is back between two other men in a pitch darkness full of steamy heat and sickening stink and a nightmarish bedlam of shrieking, weeping, praying, and vomiting.” The situation he is in is horrible. There are also lots of rats. Because it is dark Kunta does not know if he is alone or not. He feels “like a leopard in a snare” and it is hard for him to stay at one place the whole time: “The worst thing was that he couldn’t move.” The whole situation is terrible for Kunta. He and the other slaves, who were chosen to be sold as slaves get something to eat one time a day. It is called “feeding time.” Also the hygiene situation is really bad. All of the people are in on little room, unable to move. “The urine, vomit, and feces that reeked everywhere around him had spread into a slick paste covering the hard planking of the long shelves on which they lay.”
Kunta wants to be strong, but he is terrified because he never knows why something is happening. “With flashing terror e realized that the toubob were releasing him. Why? What terrible thing was going to happen now?”
5. Summary
Haley’s book has lots of interesting passages. This essay just deals with two little passages, where you get an idea of what slaves were at that time. The dialogue shows us what he black people thought about the slaves. Omoro represents his opinion and tells Kunta everything he knows about slaves.
Kunta is still young when he gets to know all this things, but just some years later he is one of the blacks who are captured by toubobs. In the second chosen passage the reader can get a little idea of what is was like to become a slave. Nobody really knows when they haven’t been slaves, but the book shows that is was a horrible situation for the blacks. With Kunta’s thoughts the reader gets lots of interesting and important impressions.