Summary
Puah despises picking cotton and what it does to her body, but keeps her grudge silent and hidden in her soul. At the end of the day, she wants to take a bath in the river but chooses not to because the men are there. Instead, Puah walks towards the barn and notices Samuel working. She calls to him and invites him to accompany her to Sarah tomorrow, where she will get her hair plaited. Isaiah appears from the barn and, called by Puah, joins the conversation.
Puah returns to her shack, where she sleeps at night with Be Auntie’s other children. She dislikes the attention that boys and men have begun giving her, though Be Auntie simply tells her that “sometimes the best a woman could do was be a sip of water." Puah firmly believes that men and toubab have much in common, specifically with regard to taking what they want without asking first. Puah imagines an alternate, Other Puah who feasts on fruit and laughs easily, willingly charmed by suitors who worship her lovingly. Her daydream is interrupted by Dug’s crying, and she cuts her eyes at him before retreating into a corner.
The next day, Puah goes to Sarah’s shack to get her hair plaited. Puah divulges that she has invited Samuel to come, and reflects on how Samuel is the only man on the plantation who genuinely cares about what she thinks without an ulterior motive. Sarah warns Puah to leave Samuel and Isaiah alone, but Puah defends herself by saying that Samuel is her friend.
After her hair is done, Puah goes to see Samuel at the barn. Samuel and Isaiah are sitting together on the ground, Isaiah braiding Samuel’s hair. Puah has an imaginary vision of two figures, the Other Puah and Her Samuel, joyfully dancing together. When she opens her eyes, she is crying.
Leviticus
Samuel and Isaiah are working when Samuel suddenly tells Isaiah that he is “too much like a woman." Isaiah tries to play it off, but Samuel says that he “can’t have no weaklings” by his side. Isaiah argues that none of the women they know are weak, and that Samuel worries too much about what the toubab think. Samuel defends his concern, and points out the growing animosity on the plantation toward them. Samuel says that he can’t stay here, to which Isaiah says that the wilderness is dangerous. Samuel replies that there is danger here too, and mentions that having a child with Puah as Paul wishes would make things easier on the plantation. Isaiah accuses him of wanting to hurt two people, not just one. The argument lingers in the air, and the two part ways to do their separate tasks.
O, Sarah!
Sarah remembers when she first arrived in America by ship, and thinks of her original home in Africa, where gender roles were drastically different. Sarah was sold to a plantation in Charleston, where she met Mary, another female slave with whom she fell in love. They were separated after being caught, and Sarah was carted off to Mississippi. At Empty, Isaiah and Samuel’s love reminds Sarah of her own past with Mary.
Sarah comes across Isaiah bathing in the river alone one evening, and tells Isaiah that he is “an old thing,” from before American slavery. Isaiah sees a woman’s face in the water, and points it out to Sarah, who is comforted by Mary’s message. James interrupts the two to tell them to return to their shacks.
Ruth wakes up in the middle of the night and rises to sit outside on the porch. She smells the flowers from her garden, which she ordered Essie and Maggie to plant along the edges of the Big House. Ruth thinks about her son, Timothy, who is studying up North where there are slightly more progressive views on slavery, such as that perhaps “Negroes” are not actually animals. Ruth is charmed by Timothy’s “childlike nature."
The overwhelming smell of the flowers touches Ruth, and she considers waking Maggie and Essie to smell the garden as well. She is overcome by her generosity in thinking to make this offer. Standing beneath the stars, Ruth is attracted by a mysterious light in the distance. She follows the light to the barn, where she accidentally steps on horse shit. She wipes it off and peeks into the barn, only to find Samuel and Isaiah arguing with each other with a simple lamp between them.
Ruth interrupts, asking for their names and what kind of space the barn is. She touches Samuel, and tells him to lie back on the ground. She commands Isaiah to look away while she mounts Samuel, but there is no joyful or exultant response, and Ruth takes offense at Samuel’s failure. She asks if he is broken, then becomes aware of her position on top of Samuel. She shouts at him to get off her before she stands, kicking the lamp over. Ruth walks in a circle, laughing, before she leaves the barn and returns to the Big House.
Babel
On Ruth’s orders, Samuel and Isaiah are awoken abruptly the next morning and shackled to a wagon. A crowd of spectators gathers, some smiling at their punishment, which shocks Isaiah. People crowd onto the wagon, and Samuel and Isaiah are forced to pull it around the entire perimeter of Empty, lashed by James. Samuel resents Isaiah’s refusal to fight back. Isaiah avoids Samuel’s glance, and thinks about who might have come before him—who Paul’s first victim was. Samuel wonders if any of them will be the last. They are stripped naked while dragging the wagon, and James steers them over a thorny bush to prolong their suffering.
Samuel and Isaiah notice the spectators watching closely, and the smiles that some of them wear. Isaiah crumples at the weight of this realization, and Samuel helps Isaiah back to the barn.
Analysis
Puah’s chapter brings even more explicit attention to the gendered violence that slave women faced on the plantation, as they were often forcibly impregnated in order to produce more ‘slave children.’ At 15, Puah is beginning to develop a deeper understanding of the vulnerabilities she faces as a woman, as men have begun making advances on her. She feels that Samuel is the only male who genuinely respects her, and she has developed a crush on him.
The tensions between Samuel and Isaiah ramp up, as Samuel brings up the fact that people on the plantation have begun turning against them. The differences in their personalities clash, as Samuel expresses his desire to escape while Isaiah cautions against the danger of leaving. Though they make up, their argument ultimately remains unresolved, and the two part ways unhappily.
Sarah offers another perspective on gender and sexuality, as she remembers when she was first forcibly brought to America and her childhood in Africa. In her original home, gender roles were drastically different and people chose their identities from various options: woman, man, free, or all. At the first plantation where Sarah was enslaved, she fell in love with a fellow slave named Mary, though they were separated when discovered. Sarah and Mary’s relationship, though not the focus of the novel, adds another dimension to the diverse depictions of gender and sexuality in the novel.
Ruth has a somewhat spiritually-charged experience when she wanders outside one night. Ruth embodies yet another intersection of identities: white and female. She ruminates on how women must endure "a more brutal combat in merely trying to survive men." And yet, as a white woman, she is able to go to the barn and rape Samuel without repercussion. The punishment, in fact, is received by Samuel and Isaiah on Ruth’s say-so.
"Babel" is a turning point for Samuel and Isaiah. Whilst pulling the wagon full of people, Samuel wonders if any of them might be the last victims of Paul and Empty, foreshadowing the ending. Isaiah is forced to reckon with the unavoidable truth that the plantation has turned against them, and that there are other slaves who even rejoice in their suffering—because it is not their own.
