While they were bound together by the same problem – ownership by the same man – they did not seek comfort from each other against their common plight. Secondly, the relationship between Manon and Sarah was far from a sisterly one. Each page of Property stayed true to these details. It was not a time of wine and roses times were harsh, the slavery system was immoral, and white and black Southerners lived in fear of each other. First, Martin portrayed a historic look into the slave-holding South. Several things struck me as compelling in this book.

She secretly wished for her husband’s death to free her from this entrapment. As time progressed, Manon’s hatred for her husband only equaled her disdain for her slave. Sarah soon bore a son to Manon’s husband while Manon never reproduced. Because of conventional marriage customs and rights of slavery, both women, in essence, become property to the same man. As a wedding gift, Manon’s aunt gave her a young slave, Sarah, to accompany Manon to her new plantation home.

Manon Gaudet is a young wife in a loveless marriage to a bankrupt, cruel planter in 1828 Louisiana. What is property? Is it a tangible thing you own? Or could it be something else – a spirit, a soul, a sense of freedom? In her Orange Prize-winning novel, Property, Valerie Martin explored the essence of property, ownership and freedom, using slavery and antebellum marriage to examine these themes. “That is precisely my grievance,” I explained. “Would the fact that the servant I brought to the marriage has borne him a son, and that this creature is allowed to run loose in the house like a wild animal, would that be, in your view, sufficient cause for a wife to despise her husband?”

Property by valerie martin