Essay Questions

What kind of treatment are the slaves exposed to in Daniel Black’s The Coming?

Daniel Black’s The Coming gives readers a first-hand glance at the strenuous and harrowing life and the inhumane treatment that the slaves go through on their journey from Africa to the West Indies. The slaves are beaten, raped, murdered, and humiliated. They are kept in inhumane conditions and treated like animals.

Explain the character traits possessed by Atiba as brought out in this novel.

Having been largely recognized as a trickster in his village, Atiba can be argued as a charlatan. Additionally, he is pretentious. Not only does he put up a show of meekness for the white couple that comes to purchase him as a slave, but he also murders them. In this way, Atiba is also a murderer.

Slavery is a central theme in The Coming. Explain how this assertion plays out in the text.

Daniel Black employs the novel, The Coming as a backdrop to present the plight of the black people brought into America as slaves. In particular, the novel follows the lives of these groups of people as they are brought in from Africa, presenting their inhumane living conditions, their mistreatment, as well as the rape, murder, and humiliation that they have to face on their journey. Since the novel follows the journeys of the slaves from Africa to America with notable descriptions of their life, the argument of slavery being a central theme in the work is justified.