Day of Tears

Chapters 1-4

Reading Check

1. Fanny Butler divorced Pierce Butler prior to the story’s setting. She didn’t know he enslaved people and was against enslavement. (Chapter 1)

2.  He lost his voice permanently, so he couldn’t work anymore. He fought with the Confederates in the Civil War and lost his leg. (Chapter 2 & Interlude 2)

3. Pierce says Sarah needs to grow up, mature, and stop being a “baby.” (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. The auctions are places where the horrors and dehumanization of slavery are on full display, which Mattie thinks the Butler girls are too young to see. Also, the girls’ mother would not approve of Pierce’s choice. (Chapter 1)

2. Pierce cares about what the people he enslaves think of his choices and his character, which Weems sees as a sign of weakness. (Chapter 2)

3. She wants to fit into the role of heiress to the Butler plantation and impress her father. (Interlude 3)

Chapters 5-7

Reading Check

1. The auction is in the barn of a racetrack. The people are kept in the horse stalls. (Chapter 5)

2. Dorcas and Jeffrey were in love and sold away from one another because they weren’t yet married. Jeffrey spends his enslavement running away as often as he can, trying to get back to her. After abolition, Jeffrey finds Dorcas has married another man and has children. It breaks Jeffrey’s heart, and he contemplates suicide. (Chapter 5 & Interlude 5)

3. Emma tells Sarah that she has a good heart like her mother, Fanny Kemble. (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. Sarah’s reaction reminds Pierce of her mother, his ex-wife Fanny Kemble. To him, both women represent weakness and immaturity. Sarah’s outbursts likely exacerbate Pierce’s guilt. (Chapter 7)

2. Emma’s parents and Pierce are “like siblings,” having grown up together. Will saved Pierce from drowning during their childhood, and Mattie’s mother breastfed Pierce as a baby. (Chapters 1 & 7)

3. Verbal irony: Buyers say they hate to capitalize on another man’s misfortune, but they gleefully bid and talk about how fun it is to take Pierce’s money at the card table. Dramatic irony: Readers know before Emma does that she is going to be sold. Situational irony: The auction’s attendees create a cavalier and jovial atmosphere amid the palpable despair of the people being sold. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 8-11

Reading Check

1. Marriage will lead to children, and she doesn’t want to have children born into slavery. (Chapter 8)

2. Joe wants to bring Sampson’s son Charles and Charles’s wife and new baby. (Chapter 8)

3. He says he hated slavery, and one day the overseer whipped him for no reason. (Chapter 9)

4. When Emma doesn’t show up the morning after the fire to care for Mistress Henfield’s daughter (Interlude 9)

5. Jeremiah Henry, the man who runs the general store (Chapter 11)

Short Answer

1. Mr. Henry wants to establish and build trust, to give Joe leverage if he needed it. Also, because he’s an abolitionist, he doesn’t believe enslaved people should be denied education. (Chapter 8)

2. Charles has been hanging out with Joe and acting happier than usual, which makes Sampson suspicious. Mr. Henry once approached Sampson and asked him if he ever thought of being free. Sampson knows Joe works at the general store and suspects Mr. Henry asked him the same question. (Interlude 8)

3. The baby likely died from smothering, or shaken baby syndrome. No one is really to blame. (Chapter 11)

Chapters 12-13

Reading Check

1. Philadelphia (Chapter 12)

2. Fanny Kemble warns them that, because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, they could be captured and re-enslaved. (Chapter 12)

3. Her granddaughter (Chapter 13)

Short Answer

1. The women cherish their old friendship. (Interlude 12)

2. They choose the name to honor the man who helped them escape to freedom, rather than naming themselves after a slaveholder. (Chapter 12)