Vyry as a Creative Survivor

Walker Jubilee Vyry In Margaret Walker's novel Jubilee the main character Vyry, the daughter of a plantation owner and his black mistress in the Civil War Era South, is a creative survivor. Vyry's innate intelligence and strength help her to both survive and flourish, despite the terrible challenges that she faces throughout her life. As a child, Vyry is defined by her illegitimate birth and mother's death. In the second section of the novel, Vyry weathers the difficulties of the Civil War.

In the third section of the novel, Vyry deals with an adult world of resettlement and racism. Throughout these struggles, Vyry's exceptional character acts as the backbone to her capacity to survive. She emerges as a woman who is not bitter, despite the brutality and harshness of her experience. It is in this ability to forgive and move on that Vyry's character is best showcased. She has not only survived, but triumphed over racism and cruelty, and her story is truly one of a creative survivor.

Jubilee tells the story of Vyry, the illegitimate daughter of a white plantation owner and his black mistress. Set in the time of the American Civil War, Jubilee is the story of Vyry's ability to not only survive her circumstances, but eventually triumph over the brutality and racism of the Deep South. Vyry survives and flourishes, despite the enormity of the difficulties that lie in front of her.

In the course of her lifetime, Vyry must deal with the reality of slavery, the death of her mother, the sale of her close friends and family, and even the challenges of war and resettlement. Vyry faces brutal racism in the violence of the Klu Klux Kan, as well as in the attitudes and actions of the white plantation owners and larger white society.

She must also maneuver the minefields of first love and the joy and sorrow of family as a black woman in the South at the time of the Civil War. In the first section of the novel, Sis Hetta's Child -- the Ante-Bellum Years, Walker chronicles Vyry's childhood. The novel begins with a sad and graphic description of the death of Hetta, Vyry's biological mother.

Of Vyry's mother, Walker writes, "It wasn't the first time this heavy breeding woman, whose babes came too fast, tearing her flesh in shreds, had had a hard and complicated time.. She was bloated and swollen beyond recognition.. Hetta started having terrible fits and hemorrhaging..." (6). Vyry's childhood is marked by her resemblance to her white father, and Big Missy Dutton constantly and viciously punishes the light-skinned Vyry for her audacity in resembling a white child.

The second section of the novel, "Mine eyes have seen the Glory" - The Civil war years, Walker shows Vyry to be a resourceful young woman. Vyry weathers the devastation of the civil war with patience and strength, as her world is turned upside down, and she is virtually helpless to stop the destruction. She watches her old tormentors and owners reduced to ruin by the war, and sees the devastating effect of poverty and powerlessness.

Throughout the ordeal, Vyry is compassionate and helpful, and Walker never lets the reader sense that Vyry has any sense of justice or revenge at the sometimes terrible and ironic misfortunes that come upon her old tormentors. The third section of the novel, "Forty years in the wilderness" - Reconstruction and Reaction, describes Vyry's struggles as an adult. Vyry deals with the brutality of Klu Klux Klan violence as her house is burnt to the ground by the Klan, and the opposition to African-American voting.

Vyry must overcome numerous obstacles simply to stay alive in a world that is rocked by racism and war. Throughout these trying times, she is strong and brave, as she endures trial after trial, from the humiliation and dehumanization of slavery, to the brutality of the Klu Klux Klan. Throughout the book, she uses her intelligence and steadfastness to survive where others cannot. It is these qualities of intelligence, strength and bravery that make Vyry a creative survivor of her circumstances.

Despite the brutality of her experiences, Vyry emerges at the end of the novel as a warm, forgiving personality. This transformation is often difficult to comprehend, given the horrors that she endures. In How I Wrote Jubilee, Margaret Walker herself notes, "How could a woman like Vyry suffer such outrage and violence and come out of her sufferings without bitterness?" (50). It is in Vyry's ability to forgive and live life without bitterness that Margaret Walker demonstrates that Vyry is truly a creative and healthy survivor.

Like Walker's real-life grandmother, Vyry intuitively understands that "hatred wasn't necessary and would.