Slavery has ended 135 years ago, but many still feel the pain of what their ancestors were put through. Katherine Anne Porter posses this in her realistic novel The Witness. Taking place on an old farm in the south , the novel begins when Uncle Jimbilly is experiencing pain in his hands. "His hands were closed and stiff from gripping objects tightly, while he worked at them, and they could not open altogether even if a child took took the thick black fingers and tried to pull them back"(Porter 3-6), and unable to take a firm grip on anything. This physical let down is showed through imagery. Katherine Anne Porter uses this as a symbol of how hard Uncle Jimbilly was worked when he was a slave. Uncle Jimbilly's health represents how Negroes of the time were treated in the slave camps, and how they were not treated well in our nation's past. The children Uncle Jimbilly is talking to are realizing history had rough parts, us modern day americans would prefer to forget.

Mrs. Warner

English 12 CP

12 December 2018

There have been many atrocious acts committed throughout human history, and slavery is a major one. The Witness by Katherine Anne Porter shows the horrors and grief caused by slavery. The story is set after the American Civil War, with a narrator retelling the stories of Uncle Jimbilly. Uncle Jimbilly was a former slave and has first hand accounts of the horrors of slavery. The tales he shares cast light on what happened during this dark period of history and conveys the theme of racism and the horrors of slavery.

 “Lightning makes no sound till it strikes.” This quote from Martin Luther King Jr. expresses the power of people's actions and stories which is portrayed through Uncle Jimbilly. Katherine Anne Porter who wrote The Witness, is a writer through the 1930s and 40s writing about tragedies of the time period. Through syntax, diction, detail, and tone, Porter shows how the white children react to Uncle Jimbilly’s stories about the “horrors of slave times.” These stories force the children to face the reality of their ancestors actions, as written the children feel “embarrassment” for the past hoping to never have history repeat itself again. 

There are many stories about slavery, and what harm it did to African Americans. Some people believe slavery wasn’t as bad as the history books say it was. When you get to talk to a former/freed slave, the will tell you just how bad it actually was. Katherine Anne Porter shows us a depiction of slavery from her novel, The Witness. This story is set on an old farm in the deep south of America. The story begins when a former slave, Uncle Jimbilly loses feeling in his hands. He isn’t able to lift anything. There is symbolism here, because it shows how slaves were treated.