Chains By Laurie Halse Anderson

Two best friends, Chris and Win, decided to do something great their summer of senior year before heading of to collage. Chris and Win are going to bike along the West Coast to Seattle, where Win’s uncle lives. At first Chris’s mom is against them going, while his dad pushes him to go because he had a similar dream that he did not accomplish. Win’s parents seem to not have a care in the world that their son is going to bike across the country. Eventually both sets of parents agree and the boys start their journey. The trip is going great but somewhere along the way things started taking a turn for the worst. The book Shift by Jennifer Bradbury is a great realistic mystery that keeps the pages turning.

The book Chains takes place during the Revolutionary War and is set in colonial New York. The main character, Isabel, is a slave for a Loyalist family. She and her sister were sold to them after her mother and her owner pass away. She makes friends with another slave, Curzon Bellingham, and is told to spy on her influential master. She operates in secret and constantly fears her owner, Madam Lockton, will catch her. She faces many troubles throughout the book, including her five year old sister being sold to an owner in another country. The book’s title signifies Isabel’s struggle with her independent soul being chained down by the others around her.

Starting from a slave’s birth, this cruel process leads to a continuous cycle of abuse, neglect, and inhumane treatment. To some extent, slave holders succeed because they keep most slaves so concerned with survival that they have no time or energy to consider freedom. This is particularly true for plantation slaves where the conditions of slave life are the most difficult and challenging. However, slave holders fail to realize the damage they inadvertently inflict on themselves by upholding slavery and enforcing these austere laws and attitudes.

The book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of a girls named Isabel and her sister Ruth who are sold in an auction and transferred to New York. The novel begins when Isabel and Ruth arrive in New York with their loyalist masters, the Locktons. Throughout the book, she meets Curzon, a rebel slave boy; goes to against the Locktons, and figures out that her sister Ruth has been moved to Charleston. In the end, Isabel becomes extremely frustrated with the Locktons and decides to run away with Curzon to Charleston. Chains provides a better understanding of how the loyalists and rebels conflicted with each other during the Revolutionary War.

The book that was read in class, Chains, had many ups and downs. There were many exciting parts in Chains, but something that caught my eye was the different lives slaves had and the ways they were treated in different places. This might have caught other people’s eyes as well. The places talked in the book were big plantations, small farms, and cities which there were slaves in every one of those places. Some people might be wondering, how could slaves live different lives, don’t they all have the same things to do. Well that is not the case in the book, Chains. In this three paragraph essay the reader will discover the different lifestyles slaves had in big plantations, small farms, and in cities.

Because his father needed him to work on the farm, young Levi received the bulk of his education at home. His home schooling proved to be a good education. As a young boy growing up in North Carolina in the early 1800's, Levi saw firsthand the reality of slavery. One day while he was out with his father helping to chop wood by the roadside, a group of slaves, handcuffed and chained together, passed by on their way to be sold in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. When Levi’s father asked them why they were chained, one of the men sadly replied: "They have taken us away from our wives and children, and they chain us lest we should make our escape and go back to them."1 After the group of slaves had gone, young Levi wondered to himself how he would feel if his father were taken away from him.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson is a book about two sisters who are enslaved trying anything possible for their freedom. They were owned by an old woman named Miss Mary Finch who died in the very beginning of the book. Miss Mary finch wanted Isabel and Ruth to be free once she had died but that plan was unsuccessful. Isabel and ruth were now owned by Miss Mary Finch’s brother because of her unfortunate death. Isabel and Ruth try to explain to their new owner that Miss Mary Finch wanted them to be free. He did not believe them one bit and called them liars. He then later sold the sisters to the Locktons and they were not treated very well. Although they are slaves and slaves are usually never treated well.

Chains is a beautifully written text by Laurie Halse Anderson that is set during the time of the revolutionary war. The revolutionary war refers to the war for American independence from Britain. The fighting began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775 and lasted through the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. The text centers around a young girl named Isabel, who is a slave in colonial America. The book starts out when Isabel is the mere age of 11, after Isabel's very unfortunate early childhood. After being separated from her father, witnessing the death of her mother, Isabel’s master died. Subsequently, Isabel and her 5-year-old sister, Ruth end up being sold to the Locktons, who live in what is now modern-day Manhattan. Madam and Master Lockton were two typical wealthy and powerful loyalists who owned a sizable house and many servants. Madam Lockton and Master Lockton subjected Isabel and Ruth to harsh situations as they treated them with great disrespect and harm. One one hand, Madam Lockton abused Isabel and her sister physically and mentally. Moreover, she sold Isabel's sister Ruth and got Isabel thrown in jail. This book really pivots around the idea of surviving harsh situations and how different individuals

The novel Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story about a slave who is trying to find freedom for herself and her sister. The protagonist, Isabel, is a slave who wants her freedom but is bound to work for Madam Lockton. This historical fiction novel is an adventurous tale about slavery and war in New York. Freedom is worth fighting for because without freedom you are becoming what another person wants you to become, not what kind of person you want to be. Also, without freedom you can’t be the person that can make a difference in society and change how people think or feel.

In the historical fiction novel Chains by Laurie Anderson, it depicts the hardships one had to face while living during the revolutionary war. Imagine how hard it would be to be living in a society where people are constantly changing their points of views and no one cares about you. In this novel you will meet a brave young girl who had to endure suffering in all aspects of her life. All in all, Anderson depicts how thought it was to be a slave and endure all the suffering you have to go through constantly.

Freedom is a gift given to us at birth. When we are born we do not have to face judgment, or feel the hatred of the world. Actions and words are what determine the type of person we are, and the backfire from the world, during the American Revolution this was not the case, at least for people of color. In the novel Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, teenager Isabel is challenged by the pigmentation of her skin and the cruelty of the time period she lives in.

Slavery in America was a horrible time in history. Africans that were captured from warfare from West Africa and were being traded as slaves for goods (Vasconcellos). Slavery did not just stop at enslaving adults, but children were also enslaved. Children of slaves were born into slavery. Slave families were always on the constant threat of being separated (Williams, 2010). This meant that many enslaved children did not grow up with their parents around. In addition, parents were unable to protect their children. As stated in the article by “How Slavery Affected African American Families,” by Heather Andrea Williams, parents had a possibility of being sold away from children. This was something that parents were afraid of and children would soon become aware of (Williams, 2010). This influenced how African American families lived. This also had an influence in the upbringing of African American children. Louis Hughes mentions in his autobiography, Thirty Years a Slave, From Bondage to Freedom of the horrendous treatment of slaves (Hughes, 1897). In Hughes’s book, he seemed to be a passive victim to the cruel treatment from his owner. Stories like his leads to the idea of African American children being passive victims to the institution of slavery. By examining the way African American children played, as Steven Mintz explains in the

The autobiography “Narrative of the life of a slave” written by Fredrick Douglass reminds me of my own personal life. When I was in the third grade I was forced to move, I move to Ohio with my mom. I never was given a choice on the matter. My experience reminds me of when Douglas was sent to live in Baltimore. He was only 10 years of age; the same age I was when I was forced to move.

Shackle, shackle, shackle! As hundreds of dark skinned slaves tied from feet to feet with metal chains made these sounds. Their backs ache from digging, and planting as they cry from pain. As the newest shipment of slaves moved along you can see through their teary eyes that they had fear. Yet one slave enraged by the fact that he must be a slave decided that it wasn’t fair.

When Madam said “It’s the devil” while Ruth was having seizure, it reminded me of the first time my mom had a seizure. This books reminds me of the song It’s my life by Bon Jovi because Isabel wants to be free and alone with her sister, Ruth, and not be apart of the selling of slaves. I’m like the character Isabel because we both know what it’s like to watch someone have a seizure and not know what to do and we both know what it’s like to be stuck in a position you can’t do anything in.