53 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth YatesAmos Fortune, Free Man
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Most of the featured Black women in Amos Fortune, Free Man are either characterized negatively or meet an unfortunate end: Lily, Lydia, and Polly Burdoo fall ill and die quickly; Lois Burdoo is “shiftless” and irresponsible; Violet lies to Fortune and both she and her daughter, Celyndia, have internalized racial self-hatred. Why do you think Yates represents Black women in this way? How do these depictions reflect attitudes that are contemporaneous with the novel’s publication?
Analyze the role of Christian religious references in Fortune’s coming-of-age narrative.
Amos Fortune, Free Man is a biographical novel wherein Elizabeth Yates invents imaginative detail and uses creative writing techniques. Research the historical Amos Fortune and discuss how his life concords with and diverges from Yates’s portrayal.
Describe Fortune’s relationship with each of his three wives—Lily, Lydia, and Violet. How do the circumstances of his relationships with each woman reflect his personal values and motivations?
Fortune is owned by two enslavers over the course of his enslavement—Caleb Copeland and Ichabod Richardson. How does the novel characterize both men in terms of their moral values and their treatment of Fortune? Do you feel that this characterization favors their perspectives as slaveholders or Fortune’s perspective as an enslaved person?
When Fortune meets each of his wives, the narrative offers a glimpse into each woman’s experience of enslavement, which are notably different from Fortune’s experience. What difference does gender appear to make for enslaved Black people in Amos Fortune, Free Man? Further, what can you glean from the fact that Fortune must purchase his wives to gain their freedom, especially while they seem helpless to obtain their own?
In the novel, Fortune achieves literacy through reading the Bible. What is the significance of him learning from the Bible rather than a reading primer or any other text?
There are countless fiction and non-fiction books about the experience of slavery for people of African descent in the Americas. Yet Amos Fortune’s experience, according to Yates, is particularly unique in the mildness of his treatment, the opportunities he accesses, and the positive attitude he has through every trial. In what ways does this “mild” representation of enslavement undermine the overall injustice of the institution of slavery? Why might Yates have chosen to represent slavery in the book this way?
Amos Fortune, Free Man has long been taught in school curriculums though it has been removed in some school districts, such as that of the Montgomery County Schools. Why do you think this book remains controversial? What do you think are the benefits and risks of teaching this book to children in school?
In Yates’s interpretation, Fortune was born a prince of the At-mun-shi people and became a king upon the sudden death of his father. How does the fictional Fortune wrestle with the dissonance between his heritage as royalty and his social position as an enslaved person?
