The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Book Analysis)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Book Analysis)
Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide
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This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It provides a thorough exploration of the novel’s plot, characters and main themes, as well as a useful introduction to the alternate history genre. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.
This clear and detailed 50-page reading guide is structured as follows:
- Biography of Colson Whitehead
- Presentation of The Underground Railroad
- Summary of The Underground Railroad
- Character study
- Cora
- Mabel
- Ridgeway
- Caesar
- Analysis of The Underground Railroad
- Historical fiction and the ‘alternate history’ genre
- Chapter structure
- Slavery
About The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad is a reimagining of the system of transport routes and safe houses that was used to help slaves escape to freedom in the antebellum USA. In Whitehead’s novel, this network become a literal subterranean railway which allows the teenage slave Cora to flee her cruel master on a cotton plantation and evade the clutches of the slave catcher Ridgeway. On her journey across the country, she witnesses the myriad horror that black Americans are subjected to and gradually begins to forge a new life for herself. The novel met with both critical and commercial acclaim when it was published in 2017: it topped bestseller lists and received numerous literary awards, including the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.
About Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is an American novelist who grew up in New York and worked as a journalist for The Village Voice before publishing his first novel, The Intuitionist, in 1999. He was catapulted to fame in 2016 with the publication of his sixth novel The Underground Railroad, and in the following year was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Product details
ISBN | 9782808018593 |
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Publisher | Plurilingua Publishing |
Collection | Brightsummaries.com |
Format | |
Pages | 50 |
File size | 2.2 MB |