Obviously, I’m the only person who hasn’t read The Secret Life of Bees, but I did read The Invention of Wings. I was very intrigued by the story of the Grimke sisters, who seem to be feminists and abolitionists born before their time. Born forty years later, and they’d be celebrated like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and many other prominent historical figures who they greatly influenced. (This story is a fictional, but plausible story of the older sister Sarah’s life.)
Handful is a slave ‘given’ to Sarah as a birthday present, and their relationship changes the course of Sarah’s life. Years later, under Sarah’s influence, her sister would pen the groundbreaking pamphlet An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. At least according to the novelization, the women were on the course to greater influence when they began attracting too much attention in the form of men (instead of just women) attending their rallies. The offense of being feminists in addition to abolitionists caused even their beloved Quaker church to abandon them.
The story includes a fair amount of deep sadness due to the content being heavy with a failed slave revolt, great abuses of slaves, and more. Handful and her mother Charlotte put a face on the first cause Sarah is fighting for—the abolition of slaves. Her powerlessness to free her friends or even help them is part of what makes the connection between abolitionism and feminism so personal for Sarah.
The author does a good job, in my opinion, of contextualizing all of Sarah’s difficulties for the modern reader. At one point, Handful remarks sarcastically to Sarah’s complaining about her lack of rights as a woman to purchase a slave (to then free that person) that she (Handful) is still the one emptying a chamberpot. A good reminder to the modern reader who might be beginning to sympathize too strongly with Sarah’s situation that there’s no reasonable comparison between being denied the right to own property or attend school (as Sarah was) and the right to live free or with any hope (as slaves like Handful were).
A worthwhile read, if only to serve as a reminder the historical importance of influential Christian faith in fighting cultural evils.
