After reading “The Price of a Child” the meaning of the title changed for me into a complete new direction. When the story first starts we learn that Ginnie Pryor (whose name later changes to Mercer Gray) escapes from slavery with her two children. Although her youngest child is left behind, back in slavery. The impression I gained up until about the last page is that Mercer would never see her child again. Giving up her youngest boy was the price she had to pay to give her other two children and herself the chance at a free life. She left knowing her son was still back in the south, but this did not stop her. A part of her felt she would return to claim her son, but in the back of her mind she knew that day may never come. Mercer was going to live with this guilt for the rest of her life to see her other two children have an opportunity at freedom. This, in my opinion was the “price” of a child. This reasoning of the title has much moral to it, and has evidence.
Although once the last page of the book is read, my philosophy was completely changed. A mere one line changed my entire perception. That sentence was “Folded into a separate sheet of paper were five slightly charred one- hundred- dollar-bills: the price of a child Bennie’s age.” This line made me realize the story’s title was a misconception. In my opinion, we are supposed to think she is giving up her youngest child for her other children’s freedom and for hers. But when we reach the end of the story we are suppose to take the title literally. She was handed a ticket to happiness, which was five hundred dollar, or as she reads it, the price of getting her youngest son Bennie back into her arms and into freedom. When the title is looked at now, I realized this was literally the price of a slave child. Could you imagine having to pay to be with your own son or daughter? To us, that is preposterous, but to Mercer, it is all of her finally being free. She was not able to appreciate the full joy of being free unless her only family, her children, was there to experience it with her. All of her internal pain can now be uplifted because she finally has enough to pay for her son.
Christina, you did a nice job communicating the effect that the title of Cary's novel had on you as a reader at different points in your journey through her work.
ReplyDeleteBe careful as you proofread your writing. At times your syntax can be quite confusing. For example, you wrote: "This reasoning of the title has much moral to it, and has evidence. Although once the last page of the book is read, my philosophy was completely changed." I'm unclear about precisely what you mean here.
Christina, I really liked the way you described your thought process when you wrote about your confusion with the title. The wording and syntax is a little confusing, though. I got a basic understanding of what you were trying to say in the paper as a whole, but sentence-by-sentence, it was hard to really get what you meant. I've found that if you read your paper out loud to yourself, or even to someone else, you catch all the little errors you might otherwise miss.
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