On that basis his student Aristotle justified the master- slave relation by arguing that it is a natural one where a slave with an inferior virtue in comparison to his master needs a master in order to survive just like a child needs a parent. The virtue of superior men was made of gold and the virtue of inferior men was made of bronze. Socrates for instance characterized people according to their virtue symbolized by different mettles. The enslavement of people has always been an issue throughout the history of mankind and already since ancient times it was justified by the classification of human beings.
That is why I want to go into further detail on the issue of slavery first. Racism itself of course is not helpful to explain the development of a love affair between a white Overseer and a former house slave but I am still convinced that racism and slavery are fundamental aspects to meaning and interpretation of Goodwin’s thoughts and actions.
Furthermore in his case it is particularly shown how the social and economic restraints of his time destined the young man to fail. More precisely I want to prove that the development of the character of Robert Goodwin and the experiences he collects within the novel make clear how a racist ideology has to fail in general. Therefore I want to try to take a closer look at this constellation in order to suggest a reason why Levy lets the new Overseer fall in love with the protagonist. At the end of the session I was neither convinced nor satisfied because if one accepts his feelings towards July as being true love, the question arouses what the author intended by portraying such a strange relationship.
I could not comprehend in opposition to the other participants how the feelings Goodwin displays towards July can be interpreted as true love since I always had in mind how cold-hearted he left her behind and even abducted the baby. But when we dealt with this topic in the seminar a discussion aroused about how the meaning of the relationship towards July should be evaluated in that context. After the first reading of The Long Song I thought the author uses the character of Robert Goodwin only to show how complex the issue of racism is and how even the ideology of abolitionism was undermined by segregation.
The third novel we discussed named The Long Song by Andrea Levy was the most impressive to me and made me especially aware of the lack of knowledge I had about the alleged liberators of the slaves in the West Indies. After attending the seminar West Indian Slavery in fiction I realized how little I knew about that cruel episode of history.
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