April Morning

These initial chapters focus on the relationships in Adam’s household. We see these dynamics through the first-person narration of a 15 year old, so from the outset the reader must be cautious about Adam’s interpretation of events as an unreliable narrator. His sincerity is not in question, nor his intelligence, as he reflects deeply on matters of faith and reason, but he finds people and their motivations to be unpredictable and confusing, a common experience of adolescence.

The primary conflict at the heart of these chapters is Adam’s relationship with his father Moses. Adam feels unloved by Moses. In his memory he cannot recall a single kind word that his father has ever spoken to him. Events do prove that Moses is an opinionated and argumentative man, but he also exhibits a care and concern for his family that seems incongruous with Adam’s stark depiction of him as callous and harsh. This is the first hint that Adam’s perceptions do not always reflect reality.

The secondary conflict for Adam is not an external relationship as much as an internal struggle, although Granny symbolizes the opponent in this struggle and is its mouthpiece in the text. This is the struggle that Adam has with the tenets of Christianity and faith in general. He sees hypocrisy in the church and suspects that many people, including members of his own family, do not really believe the things that they profess to believe.

Moses himself is likely the source of this ambivalence toward matters of faith. Moses never openly speaks against the church or faith in general, but his unorthodox prayer at dinnertime, coupled with his discussion with Joseph Simmons about leaving matters of faith out of the document they are crafting, indicates that while Moses may feel Christianity is superior to mere superstition, it nevertheless must take a back seat to reason. When Moses lectures Adam at the dinner table about his forbears, he tells Adam that they were men who, “like the ancient philosophers, look upon argumentation and disputation as avenues toward the deepest truths” (17). Notably absent from this list is any mention of revelation or the Bible as a source of truth.

The character of Ruth Simmons symbolizes the future and Adam’s hopes for it. The biblical Book of Ruth is a story of a young woman looking to be married and to find stability in the land, making this an appropriate name for her character. Adam shares his thoughts about what he should do with his life with Ruth. He confides in her that he has considered leaving home to join a merchant marine ship captained by his uncle Ishmael Jamison, a plan Ruth does not care for. It is significant that Adam has this conversion with Ruth and not his immediate family. It demonstrates the level of comfort and trust he feels in her presence, which starkly contrasts with the lack of love Adam feels from his father.

Something of Joseph Simmons’s character is also conveyed here. Adam admires his conviction even though he usually does not care for “moral” people (33). Joseph’s commitment to antislavery ideals has cost him his relationship with his brothers. In the biblical story of Joseph, he also loses his relationship with his brothers and is sold into slavery by those same brothers, which is likely what this name references.

Chapter 2 closes with a satisfactory and heartwarming resolution to Adam’s primary conflict with his father, making the first two chapters something like a short story in their own right. Chapter 1 opens with Adam wishing he could read his father’s heart and mind, and he does, in a fashion, at the end of Chapter 2, by overhearing the conversation between Moses and Sarah. He falls asleep assured that his father does indeed love him.

The character arcs for Moses and Adam are symbolically confirmed by Sarah’s reading of The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical work of the time that delineates the positive growth of a character (from a Christian perspective) from ignorance and depravity to enlightenment and salvation. The Pilgrim’s Progress depicts a man who must leave his family behind to make certain decisions that will decide his character and ultimate fate, which underscores the nature of the events that will soon overtake Adam.