In the Roots mini-series, based on the novel of the same name, Kizzy is the daughter of Kunta Kenti, the original slave brought from Africa through the slave trade. Kizzy, whose name means “stay put,” is raised under the ownership of Dr. William Reynolds. Kizzy is an essential character in the movie because she is one of the first slaves to learn to read and write, something that is forbidden. She also experiences friendship with a white woman/girl Missy Anne, the one who teaches her to read and write.
Kizzy is an important character because she can operate within the oppression of slavery to learn to read and write and to set up her children to find freedom eventually. Her son, George, the result of Kizzy being raped by a new plantation master, eventually finds land in Tennessee that the rest of the family moves to after the Civil War.
Kizzy starts out as a somewhat naive character. She wants to marry Noah, another slave that lives on the plantation, but doesn’t quite understand the gravity of the moves that Noah is making. She shows her feelings when she says,
Oh, Noah, wouldn't it be fine if things were different? And you could stay here, and we could marry up and, raise young 'uns just to be strong and happy as we'd be? It surely would be fine.
His immediate response is that he doesn’t have time for dreams.
Through her life events, we see Kizzy go from naive to knowledgable. She is a complex character that shows how she understands the system despite others thinking that she doesn’t. One example is when she is having a conversation with Missy Anne, who is explaining that black people are naturally inferior to whites. Kizzy says, “Abolitionists want to change it, Missy Anne,” showing that she isn’t always going to take the knowledge of her master’s daughter at face value. Missy Anne says that God made black people be slaves and that if He didn’t want it that way it would change. The response that Kizzy gives shows that she doesn’t think it's natural but rather man-made.
Her dreams vanish when Noah is caught escaping. She is punished for helping Noah try to escape, her literacy is found out, and she is sold. When being sold, she begs Missy Anne to help her, “Missy Anne, please, please help me!” but she learns that her mistress despises her now that she has been found out and embarrassed her. She is taken away to her new owner, Thomas Moore.
Her new owner rapes her, and she has a son named George as a product of that rape. She is still active and resilient, but she no longer dreams in the same way. The experience of her sale and the rape are enough to harden her as a character.
No comments:
Post a Comment