The Invention of Wings

At a young age, Sarah recognizes the injustice of slavery and the humanity of all her fellow human beings. Her stammering speech demonstrates the trauma of the violence she witnessed and represents her inability to stop it; her voicelessness represents her powerlessness. In describing Sarah’s speech impediment, Handful says, “Back then, Miss Sarah pulled words from her throat like she was raising water from a well” (14). Though at times Sarah can speak more fluently than others, Sarah frequently loses her voice during times of great emotion or upset. This literal loss of voice symbolizes Sarah’s inability to be heard in her family or her society. Sarah initially has no power: She cannot free Handful, and she cannot choose her own path in life.

However, as Sarah transforms, she regains her voice and uses it to make a difference in the world, by speaking out against slavery and sexism:

Hushing up of the Grimké sisters—would it never stop? […] these good men who wished to quash us, gently, of course, benignly, for the good of abolition, for our own good, for their good, for the greater good. It was all so familiar. Theirs was only a different kind of muzzle (334).

Sarah explains here the insidious nature of the sexism she, Nina, and all women confront every day. Even these men of the Anti-Slavery Society, who generally support women’s rights, fail to understand the subtle yet powerful way they assert male privilege to silence women’s voices. Having struggled, literally, to have a voice, Sarah finds it impossible to muzzle herself. The muzzle reference clearly ties into the muzzles used as slave punishment, as with Sky’s incident with little missus. Equating her bondage under sexism with the image of a slave punishment highlights the cruelty of both women’s and slaves’ positions in 19th-century society.

Sarah tells the men, “Do what you have to do, censure us, withdraw your support, we’ll press on anyway. Now, sirs, kindly take your feet off our necks’” (334). Sarah’s bravery shines through here, as she confronts the men of the Anti-Slavery Society who have asked her and Nina to stop speaking to groups containing men and to stop advocating for women’s rights. Sarah is recovering from being hit in the mouth by a protestor’s rock at a recent speech, and they have been threatened and reviled in newspapers across the country. This adds to her worry that her speech impediment will return, stealing her voice.

Whereas Sarah is young and powerless at the beginning of the novel, by the end she is leading Handful and Sky to freedom. Though Sarah is risking 20 years in prison for writing seditious, anti-slavery material and another 20 years for helping a slave escape, Sarah doesn’t hesitate to help Handful and Sky. In reclaiming her voice, Sarah has also forged her own path in life—two dreams that Sarah once believed were impossible.