The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan covers a wide array of topics throughout five hundred pages including the role of women, socioeconomic status, the cruelties of horse racing, and much more. But one of the more important themes that she covers is the role of interracial relationships. Despite that much of this book is placed in the not so distant past, most of the many of the characters are deeply racist, yet many of these characters fall in love with a member of a different race.
The first woman introduced in the novel is Lavinia Forge, wife of John Henry and mother of Henry Forge. As the lady of the house, she's only ever described as beautiful, kind, and silent, which are the three reasons that John Henry decided to marry her. Because of this loveless marriage, she finds comfort in Filip, the black worker her husband trusted everything to do. After the affair is over, she writes to her son about love. In this letter Lavinia declares her love for Filip because of the way he looked at her, and how she "strove to become worthy of him, to become his equal" (71). It is in this passage that Lavinia recognizes and defies the racist ways of the Kentucky countryside.
And decades later, it is Lavinia's granddaughter, Henrietta, who defies again. Her love story is the one that this book revolves around, the one that also ends the book. Because of the way that she was raised, it was almost impossible for her to not harbor racist ideals somewhere in her, but Henrietta loves Allmon easily, without much inner conflict with her desires. Shortly before the end of their relationships, she confesses to him that he is "the best things [she] can think of" (351). It's the love between Henrietta and Allmon that causes him to come back to the farm at the end and wreak havoc.
It is Henrietta's son, born of her and Allmon, that causes even Henry to love what he swears to hate all his life. Samuel, whose name does not resemble Henry or Henrietta, but instead after the first Forge, which resembles the new time that is coming to life. After his birth, Henry goes through a lot of conflict with his emotions. His grandson is the product of a relationship that he hated but is also the only family he has left. Samuel causes Henry to change his whole life, even change the farm that he grew up on to make "a field of flowers" because his "grandson will like this" (466). Henry Forge most likely did not lose all his racist beliefs, but he did love his grandson more than anything else in the world.
These relationships and love stories are not perfect, with many of them lacking happy endings and comfort, they do play a very important role. C.E. Morgan created a world so full of twists and turns that it was at times hard to keep up with. The love that lives in this book is all about the types of love that can transcend hate.
While I agree with your statement that C.E. Morgan’s depiction of love is very important, yet also very confusing, I do not agree that the love in this book is about transcending hate. While there is a strong sense of overcoming the hate and biases that are seen within the Forge family, I do not believe that love itself is what is transcending hate.
ReplyDeleteHenrietta’s love was never going to have any inner conflicts as she disagreed with many of her father’s beliefs, but the judgements that she did make about Allmon out of her unconscious racism, as well as her lack of understanding of his life, and how he is treated different, doomed their relationship even if she did live. Henrietta came from a higher white class, and though she may have tried she was never going to understand Allmon which was made especially clear when they fought and she asked him if he knew what “the problem [was] with people like you?...Self-pity. It’s always someone else’s fault” (Morgan 332). Despite Allmon not being able to share his past over the sheer pain it caused him, her lack of understanding for Allmon and other black people’s struggles was never going to be transcended by hate.
Samuel was also never enough for Henry Forge to truly overcome his racist beliefs. If Henrietta had not died, I do not believe that Henry Forge would have wanted to even acknowledge the existence of the baby. Though Henry did seemingly change his mind about the black beggar stereotype, it is extremely difficult to think that just due to Samuel he became accepting to every black person he came across. In addition, Henry Forge was a man for his family line, and his love for Samuel appears to be more of a reliance as his wife had left him and his daughter had died so he was left with no one. He was obsessed with his bloodline, so his love for Samuel appeared more as an obsession due to the Forge blood that ran through him, even though he was part black.
C.E. Morgan was not one to write about happy endings or even happy evolutions, and it does not appear that love was an exception, especially when it is used as a way to say it transcended hate. There was too much hate and racism ingrained within this novel for love alone to transcend it.