Day of Tears

“It’s been three days since we’ve seen the sun. Yesterday it started raining and it hasn’t stopped since. The rain is coming down as hard as regret. Will said the rain started up just when the selling began. I ain’t never seen a rain like this. Will said, ‘This ain’t rain. This is God’s tears.’”

In the opening dialogue of the book, Mattie discusses how heavily the rain has fallen during the slave auction. Although historically the readers know that it rained, the characters’ repeated assertions of the heaviness with which the rain fell lends some sort of apocalypticism to the natural events. Mattie argues that the rain began simultaneously with the selling, as though Nature herself were expressing her displeasure at the events occurring. Mattie continues reiterating Will’s argument that God is crying because of the results of the auction. In this way, the author aligns the emotions of the slaves with that of a divine being, implying that slavery itself goes against God and even against Nature. However, Mattie is relaying to the audience her husband’s point of view, lending the argument itself a communal validity.

“Us Butler plantation slaves used to be the envy of all the slaves in these parts because Master Butler—the first one and then this one—treated their slaves almost like they was family.”

Will discusses the nature of slavery on the Butler plantation. He argues that Butler’s slaves used to be the most well-treated out of all the slaves around. However, in saying that they “used to be the envy,” he now implies that their positionality within the greater slave community represents one of pity, not envy.