The longest memory

Question 1

‘Forgetting’ - Whitechapel foreshadowing change

Answer 1

“But how long can the master’s daylight continue to rule our nights?”

Question 2

‘Forgetting’ - Sanders Junior (racism)

Answer 2

“If you were white I would have wanted you as my father.”

Question 3

‘Forgetting’ - Sanders Junior (Whitechapel’s role)

Answer 3

“You were a better overseer than I am.”

Question 4

‘Great Granddaughter’ - reflecting on Whitechapel (3)

Answer 4

“the whip exacted as much a toll on his good body as his son’s”
“a ghost we all see and ignore because he killed his only son”
“he shrank in stature before [her] eyes”

Question 5

‘The Virginian’ - white commentary on slavery (2)

Answer 5

“The degree of humanity [they] should accord slaves”
the way to treat “the very old slave who has given a life of good service but who is now too old to be of much use”

Question 6

Lydia’s fanciful and idealistic dreams for a future with Chapel

Answer 6

“Chapel… writing verses for a living”

Question 7

‘Cook’ - the healing power of love, despite hideous abuse (2)

Answer 7

Whitechapel who “saved” her
“He can love. He proves he loves me everyday.”

Question 8

‘Chapel’ - his bid for freedom (3)

Answer 8

“Shaking [his] head at the abyss between [them]”
“the woman who gave me breath”
“With her gone nothing could keep me there. Father I am running. I feel joy; not fear.”

Question 9

Cook’s reaction to her son’s literacy (2)

Answer 9

“My son can open a book and sound like the master”
“What I heard must not be taken from him”

Question 10

Sanders Senior’s punishment

Answer 10

A hefty monetary fine, forced apologies to both Cook and Whitechapel and the obligatory marriage to a “toothless, palsied hag”

Question 11

Sanders Senior treatment of slaves (2)

Answer 11

“too severe with them” according to his employer
her offered cook recompense in the form of “whatever she wanted from [his] wife’s closet in return for her silence”

Question 12

Young Sanders Junior about Whitechapel

Answer 12

“is by far the best worker and … has he most agreeable manner”

Question 13

Mr Whitechapel to Sanders Junior

Answer 13

“This whole mess cannot be ended anymore that it can be made as simple as it may have been at its inception” … “Whitechapel’s longevity and living memory ensures that. Our consciences, for God’s sake, ensure it too.” “We must not allow this trade to turn us into savages. We are Christians”
“He deserved better treatment” about Whitechapel

Question 14

Mr Whitechapel to Whitechapel regarding Chapel’s death

Answer 14

“Your son’s death is a matter of deepest regret to us all… You should have saved him from himself, Whitechapel.” “Close the door behind you like a good man.”

Question 15

Mr Whitechapel perspective on slaves

Answer 15

slaves should be treated “first and foremost as subjects of God” but are “blessed with lesser faculties” and so are “suited to the trade of slavery.”

Question 16

Whitechapel and the slave mentality of “obedience” reflection

Answer 16

“A master of his own slavery. Slave and enslaver. Model slave.” “Killer of children”

Question 17

Whitechapel on the two types of slaves

Answer 17

“the slave who must experience everything for himself… and he who learns through observation.” “The second is brighter, lives longer”

Question 18

Whitechapel crying quote - “Remembering”

Answer 18

“I never knew crying could take over a body so, rock it, shake it, rattle it, thump it…” “That was me over the whipping of a boy who had to know better somehow and would have learned with a good talking to…. but not this, not this.”

Question 19

Whitechapel - memory as a living agent of pain

Answer 19

“Don’t make me remember. I forget as hard as I can.”

Question 20

Whitechapel’s love for his son

Answer 20

“The last time I cried was over the pointless death of a boy I loved as my own”

Question 21

Opening phrase - encompassing Whitechapel’s personal sense of hopelessness, his grief and bitterness

Answer 21

“The future is more of the past waiting to happen.”

Question 22

Whitechapel’s loss of identity in his role of slave, his own mental enslavement

Answer 22

“I have no name”

Question 23

Taunts made by Whitechapel’s relatives

Answer 23

“sour-face” and “judas” (the betrayer of the son he allegedly loved with all his heart)

Question 24

Cook’s final declaration

Answer 24

“Don’t keep me waiting too long”

Question 25

Chapel’s punishment and death (2)

Answer 25

“public display of savagery”
“by dusk the same day”

Question 26

Cook’s endless love for her family

Answer 26

“my pot is sweeter to me”
I “fill two plates for the people I love, my husband and son”
“Whitechapel is my life…There is no earthly way I can match his love.”

Question 27

Whitechapel - the torment of memory

Answer 27

“memory is a pain trying to resurrect itself”

Question 28

Collective grief shared by the slaves for Chapel but also their general circumstances

Answer 28

“They begged and cried. The night was torn apart by their grief”

Question 29

Whitechapel regarding slaves’ intelligence

Answer 29

“Africans may be our inferiors, but they exhibit the same qualities we possess, even if they are merely imitating us”

Question 30

Whitechapel to Lydia regarding future change and the consequences of granting Chapel and education

Answer 30

“He said it might be possible in the future. I look up at him and, as if to dash my hopes of a future when Chapel and I could sit and read together, he adds, maybe in the next century.”
“By teaching little Whitechapel to read and write when he can never use it you have done him the gravest injustice” - a law according to Lydia that is “unjust”

Question 31

The Virginian’s stance in interracial relationships

Answer 31

“There is no sight so perfidious than that of a white woman and a black man”

Question 32

Lydia advocating for slaves to educated

Answer 32

“it would improve mankind”

Question 33

Editor’s opinion of Lydia

Answer 33

originally “credited her with intelligence” but was “grossly mistaken” her “love for blacks” “clouds her ability to reason about any subject involving them”

Question 34

Lydia’s love for Chapel

Answer 34

“I realise I am in love with a slave”
“At what point do I stop hearing the words and listen to the voice alone and realise I am in love with its cadence.”

Question 35

Plantation owner’s offer for Whitechapel

Answer 35

“Name your price. That slave of yours is a slaver’s dream”

Question 36

Mr Whitechapel’s leniency

Answer 36

“My acquaintances tell me I am too lenient… No I argue back… a satisfied slave is a happy slave and a more productive worker.”

Question 37

Extent of Whitechapel’s loss

Answer 37

“two wives and most of [his] children”

Question 38

Plantation owners arguing about business and faiths coexistance

Answer 38

they argue that slavery is business concerned with their “physical and mental well-being; while Christianity looks after the hunger of the soul”