Imagery of Darkness and Light
The imagery of darknessand light is employed in
the poem to create the effect of journeying from
the darkness of slavery to the light of freedom. It
suggests that the physical journey is also a spiritual
journey, like that of the Israelites in the Bible who
were brought from bondage in Egypt to freedom
in the Promised Land. The worddarknessis used
three times in the first two lines to create the pre-
vailing atmosphere, and is reinforced by a similar
choice of words in lines 4 (twice) and 6. The slaves
travel by night to escape detection. The image of
darkness is then contrasted with the North, which
is seen as a bright star beckoning, leading the slaves
into the light. The star image is repeated near the
endofsectionI.HarrietTubmanisalsodescribed
in terms that suggest she is the bringer of light to
her people. Darkness is evoked again in the four-
line stanza that occurs near the end of the poem,
and also in the four lines that speak metaphorically
of the Underground Railroad. The images suggest
that life, at least for the slaves, is a contest between
darkness and light, and they intend to make sure
that the light wins.
Metaphor
Beginning eight lines from the end, the poem
alludes to the Underground Railroad by employ-
ing the metaphor of a train to describe the flight of
the slaves. The poet seems to use two different
speakers to convey the metaphor. The first voice
occurs in a one-line refrain in which the speaker
invites others to join the train. The second voice
uses a five-line italicized passage in which the meta-
phor is extended, with references to the track on
which the train runs, the name of the train, and the
stations at which it stops, all metaphorically
presented.
Syntax
Syntax refers to the way in which words are
arranged in phrases and sentences. The first seven
lines produce the effectof constant breathless
movement as the harassed slaves run for their free-
dom. There is no punctuation in these lines, which
means there is nothing to slow them down for the
reader. The phrases are linked not by commas or
semicolons but by the repetition of the wordand,
whichoccurstwelvetimesinthesesevenlines,
evoking the continual succession of obstacles that
keep piling up for the runaways and the sense that
their flight is unending. This is also conveyed by
the many repetitions of individual words and
phrases in these lines.
The first line begins with four successive verbs
with no subject. The reader is thrown into the
action, the constant movement, without even
being told who is doing the running and the fall-
ing. The subject who performs these actions,
which would normally be used in conjunction
with the verb, is not introduced until line 6, with
the first-person pronoun. This is itself a surprise,
since those initial four verbs are in the third-person
singular, which would lead one to expect the sub-
ject, when it finally comes, to be ‘‘he’’ or ‘‘she.’’ The
technique in these lines suggests a film sequence in
which people are seen from afar, running in dark-
ness, with no explanation of who they are, and
then the camera moves in on one person, as rep-
resentative of the group butstill not distinguished
in any individual way.HISTORICAL CONTEXTThe Underground Railroad
During the early part of the nineteenth century,
runaway slaves had only the North Star to aid
them on their perilous journey to freedom in the
North. But by the 1840s, the complicated secret
network that became known as the Underground
Railroad, run by antislavery activists and sympa-
thizers, black and white, was well established. It
stretched from the slave states all the way up to
Canada. During the 1850s, it is estimated that
about one thousand slaves each year reached the
North with the help of the Underground Rail-
road, the majority being young males from the
slave states of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and
Missouri rather than the Deep South.
Members of the Underground Railroad,
almost all of whom were men, used code words
drawn from railroad terminology to describe the
way the system functioned. Members were
‘‘agents’’; ‘‘stations’’ and ‘‘depots’’ referred to
safe houses where the runaways could stay during
the day. ‘‘Stationmasters’’ were those in charge of
the safe houses. There were also ‘‘conductors’’
who escorted the ‘‘cargo’’ (the slaves) on a partic-
ular segment of their journey, and ‘‘abductors’’
who went into the South to fetch the slaves and
guide them out.
Runaway slaves traveled by night, mostly by
foot or by wagon but sometimes also by boat or
train. Traveling either alone or in small groups,
they would generally be able to cover about ten
miles a night on foot. On reaching a safe house,Runagate Runagate