Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person / Central Narrator
It's hard to imagine a character other than Isabel as Chains' narrator. After all, it's her story, her journey through loss, heartache, and agony to discover the strength she didn't know she had.
Part of the need for Isabel as a first-person narrator comes from the way her voice aids in developing her character. She's funny to the point of being sassy at times, like when she describes Madam wearing her mouse fur eyebrows to her party by saying, "In truth, she looked like a woman with two lumps of mouse fur stuck on her face" (34.9). Some of her word choices are also quirky—she calls her mind a "brainpan" (34.63), for instance. We like that one.
With Isabel as narrator, we also get to experience her emotional response to the story's events firsthand. This is particularly true of the events following Madam's decision to sell Ruth. As readers, we join Isabel in the disjointed six days that follow her being thrown in jail. "My thoughts would not line up like good soldiers," she says. "They swarmed afield and fled, chasing the blood that dripped from my head" (22.6). Through descriptions like this, we feel the same confusion and panic that Isabel does.
We don't usually do this, but we think it's interesting—and important—to consider in this case. Is it problematic that the author is white and the story is told in the voice and from the perspective of an enslaved black person? Why or why not?