The Nature Of Life In John Kennedy's Swallow Barn

Swallow Barn is a novel written by John Kennedy a romantic portrayal of the Old South of life on a Virginia plantation. As a child John spent his summers on the Pendleton family plantation in what is now West Virginia, which instilled in him an abiding affection for the South. A perspective on plantation life that Kennedy was familiar with.
Kennedy describes the setting Swallow Barn as an old southern adored little nook barn on bank of the James River giving a sense happy go lucky and light nature individuals live their. Kennedy portrayed black people as serene in their servitude to their masters giving the idea that masters and slaves had mutual respect for one another. An example of that type of relationship in the story is with Kennedy’s main character Frank Meriwether the big hearted and caring character and Carey, the Negro who works for Meriwether's and takes care of the horses. The little protégée of his master. There relationship though is master and slave, their
Describing the way they dressed “At length, as a last resort, he went up to his chamber, and dressed himself out with extraordinary particularity in white drilling pantaloons, as stiff with starch as if they were made of foolscap paper, a white waistcoat, his green frock, a black stock, boots and his light, hair-cloth forage-cap.” Depicting them as dressing in white people clothing. They didn’t see how there treatment was a sin. Proslavery. A repeat of it over and over because maybe in they way they were not only trying to persuade other people that slavery was right but also in a way trying to persuade themselves into believing that it was right. John Kennedy writes of slavery without stating it being wrong nor does he defend slavery as a Biblical, historical, and a social stability means of life. Which many individuals in that time period believed, because at that time there was no equality at that time in