58 pages • 1 hour read
Tananarive DueThe Reformatory: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Racism of the American Criminal Justice System
The Reformatory begins with a gross miscarriage of justice. Although Lyle McCormack causes the scuffle that provokes Robbie Stephens to kick him, Robbie is the only one who suffers the consequences. Robbie’s incarceration, along with the pain and trauma he suffers in the Reformatory, indicts the American criminal justice system as an institution that dehumanizes the very people on the margins of society whom it should be serving.
As wealthy white landowners, the McCormacks wield considerable influence over the agencies that maintain peace and order in Gracetown. Lyle’s actions are never taken into account during Robbie’s trial, and the fact that it falls upon both Robbie and Gloria to speak truth to power underlines their glaring misrepresentation in a court of law. In an ideal justice system, Robbie would have had access to legal services to present his case before a judge and jury. Gloria notices, however, that there is never an attempt to represent Robbie except through his own incomplete account of the events. There is also never a jury to hear his case and debate the merits and faults of the arguments. Robbie simply goes before a judge and is sentenced without consideration. When Harry T. Moore and John Dorsey speak to the judge later on, the unsympathetic judge believes that he was more merciful than he ought to have been.
It becomes clear that Robbie’s incarceration has less to do with his conflict against the McCormacks than it does with his father, Robert. Robbie suffers abuse in the criminal justice system only so that he can function as a pawn to lynch Robert. Robert is himself a target of mob violence. The wealthy residents of Gracetown resent him for his work as a Black union organizer. The criminal justice system levies false charges against him and harasses his children, even to the point of intimidating the Black neighborhood of Lower Spruce when it shelters Gloria. When Sheriff Posey arrives to defuse the tension between the neighborhood and the Ku Klux Klan, he threatens to have the whole neighborhood arrested. He also assures them that bringing Robert to “justice” will satisfy the Klan members.
After Robbie reaches the Reformatory, he learns that Haddock will lash him at the request of Lyle’s father, Red. The McCormacks have a direct line to the director of the penal system that metes out punishments, underlining the influence they have over the criminal justice system. However, this lashing only scratches the surface of Warden Haddock’s long line of abuses. He treats his office as a personal outlet for his aggression and hatred of others. “Reform” is only a word he uses to justify the violence he commits against the boys. His office enables him to commit the most heinous crimes with impunity, much like the impunity that the McCormacks and the Klan enjoy as they wield their power over Gracetown’s marginalized communities.
While The Reformatory takes place in a historical past, it hints at the failure to resolve this issue by the time the novel has ended. Gloria’s premonitions of further racist violence highlight the need to continue working against systems that try to reform society according to unjust or prejudicial standards.
The Struggle to Resolve the Past and Preserve the Present
During his incarceration, Robbie is caught in the middle of competing priorities. Warden Haddock wants Robbie to rid the Reformatory of haints so that he can hide the truth about the abuses he committed. Blue, on the other hand, wants Robbie to free the haints and steal the evidence that will incriminate Haddock. What Robbie wants most, however, is to escape the Reformatory, leave Gracetown with his sister, and live with their father in Chicago. Haddock appeals to this desire by offering an early release in exchange for Robbie’s services. Blue can only offer to help Robbie escape, but he also threatens to lure the haint of Robbie’s mother into one of Boone’s traps.
The tension between these priorities represents the tension between the unresolved issues of the past and finding ways to preserve what still exists in the present. Robbie can obtain what he wants if he does Haddock’s bidding. However, every time he traps a new haint, he angers Blue and endangers his mother. For Robbie, sacrificing his mother to escape the Reformatory is unimaginable. Robbie’s mother’s death is an unresolved trauma in his own past, namely the trauma of having to grow up prematurely in the absence of both parents. This tension between past and present also resonates with the point that Blue is making about freeing the haints: By abandoning the haints who are trapped in Haddock’s haint jar, Robbie is complicit in burying the past. Choosing to side with Haddock makes Robbie’s present needs seem more important than the unresolved problems of the past.
On the other hand, Robbie actively resists being complicit in Haddock’s schemes. After Robbie reveals his intention to escape, Redbone urges him to consider sacrificing Blue to remain in Haddock’s good graces. Redbone’s argument affirms that the present is more important than the past, but Robbie cannot accept this reasoning and let go of his past traumas. Moreover, when he continues to prioritize Haddock’s needs and fails to deliver him the haint of Hank Jackson, he realizes that Haddock’s offers have always been empty, promising more harm than good. Haddock has Redbone killed to spur Robbie into action. Redbone’s death has the opposite effect, however, firming Robbie’s resolve to escape and carry out Blue’s wishes. It is also easier for Robbie to decide to free the haints and expose Haddock in honor of Redbone rather than out of loyalty to Blue.
Redbone thus becomes a link between the past and the present, showing how the concerns of resolution and preservation are not conflicting but interrelated. Robbie must carry out Blue’s plan to ensure that none of the boys who remain at the Reformatory will suffer Redbone’s fate. He effectively preserves the present by resolving the issues of the past.
Turning to Community in Times of Trouble
Gloria turns to different avenues for help in her quest to liberate Robbie from his incarceration. Despite the danger and hostility of the Jim Crow South, her journey reveals pockets of solidarity, each one challenged to go the extra mile to ensure her and Robbie’s survival.
Miss Anne is part of a family with a tenuous relationship to anti-racist action. The Powells are publicly known through Anne’s late father, a councilman who showed his solidarity for the Black community in Gracetown. After Councilman Powell was killed in a car accident likely caused by the Ku Klux Klan, the Powells seem to fall back into the racist attitudes that characterize Gracetown. Anne, trying to keep up an appearance with her family, hides her true feelings about the plight of the local Black community. This secrecy mirrors her closeted relationship with Channing Holt, which she carries out in secret to avoid the anti-gay bias prevalent in the mid-20th century. Anne clearly wants to help Gloria and begins to demonstrate her compassion by extending money to her for legal services. She ultimately steps up as Gloria’s ally, however, on two occasions: first, when she uses her social connection to Loehmann to get Gloria on the Reformatory’s visitors list, and second, when she covers for Gloria after the sheriff comes looking for her at the Powell residence. She uses her white privilege to aid and protect someone being harassed by the criminal justice system because of their race.
During her journey, Gloria has the opportunity to meet the real-life faces of anti-racist resistance in the Jim Crow South. Gloria meets Ruby McCollum, who provides Gloria and Miz Lottie with an alibi for their travels. Gloria senses Ruby’s future suffering but acknowledges that her assistance will help them evade police violence. When Gloria meets Harry T. Moore, the Florida state president of the NAACP, he and lawyer John Dorsey are in the middle of affecting the laws that enabled racists to lynch Willie James Howard. Harry and John go out of their way to represent Robbie before the judge who convicted him, and they use the logic that Robbie’s case is related to Robert’s false charges to advocate for protections. Despite their failure to change the judge’s mind, Harry and John, who remain steadfast allies, become the first people Gloria thinks of when she and Robbie escape with the evidence against Haddock.
Finally, Gloria’s strongest allies are Miz Lottie and the neighbors of Lower Spruce, who actively stand up to defend Gloria and their homes from the Klan after they attempt to hunt her down. When Gloria decides that she wants to break Robbie out of the Reformatory, they actively support her plan by offering their knowledge and skills to increase her chances of success. Uncle June and Waymon even go so far as to risk their freedom by cutting the fence open early at Gloria and Robbie’s request even though the act results in their incarceration. Miz Lottie fulfills her role as Gloria’s godmother by sheltering her and accompanying her on her visit to Robbie to distract the guards while Gloria briefs him on the plan. She also serves as the getaway driver, bringing Robbie and Gloria to the train station so that they can escape to Chicago.
Each of these avenues reveals that in the most hostile times, there are people willing to choose compassion and resist the efforts to spread fear and hatred among diverse communities.
