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Valerie Martin’s Novel Property Essay

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Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the…show more content…
Manon no longer has her mother, the only person who would have maybe saved her from this crazed life that she lives. Soon after her mothers death there is an insurrection on the Gaudet plantation which leaves Manon’s husband dead and Manon badly injured. This insurrection also aided Sarah plenty of help in escaping from the plantation, leaving her as a runaway and as how Manon put it, “stolen property”. Both Manon and Sarah were now free. The length of the book was in fact appropriate, it was satisfying due to the reason that the book flowed and the chapters were not long and drawn out, but everything was fit in perfectly. The novel was written in reflections alternating with narrative. The book was written in this format because it was Manon’s story, it was Manon descrbing to the reader what she was going through and how she dealt with it, etc. Martin wrote this novel in a somewhat scholarly language. The novel is understandable, yet there as some words that you may need to lookup. The audience of this book is basically anyone who wants to read it, whether your not use to reading books with scholarly text or you are. Martin also has times in the book where Manon flashes back to her past, during around the time frame of her father’s death or the earlier times when she was somewhat happy with her husband. Martin is also able to tell the reader two points of view from one. Valerie
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