Character Profile

Character Study: Aminata Diallo

My characters name is Aminata Diallo. She's a medium sized women, with blue-black skin (seen in different lighting such as the moonlight). She has fairly good skin and not many visible signs of wrinkles, but very noticeable ones in her old age. She also has nice cheekbones, on her left cheekbone, she has a scar in the shape of a crescent to represent what tribe/ village she is from. She has big curly hair that is sometimes pulled back into braids, or wrapped up into a head scarf.

In her younger state, she is very happy, loud and eccentric. She is very curious because she would like to know how to read. In her middle age, she is very smart and picks up on verbal, and physical cues very well. She is also quiet, and mysterious when she has to be, but also very brave and courageous at the right moments to fight for what she believes is right. She is in love with a man named Chekura, who she also has a child with, but she becomes very sad and upset at one point because her child is taken away from her. In her oldest age, she is first seen as someone wise and someone who is hurting because she is alone without her man and children, but towards the end of the novel when  Solomon Lindo brings back her child to her in London, she becomes very happy and “rejuvenated” with laughter, and love.

Aminata Diallo intrigues me because she is someone who I would like to relate to and look up to. She is someone who has been through the worst of hardships and yet, she still continues to fight and push on for what she believes in. She fights so much that in the end things slowly become better for her and what she would want in her life (eg. her fighting for freedom). She is the definition of a strong black woman, and is a great example of a role model for other people of colour who sometimes face or are facing injustice in their daily lives.

A quote from this character that reveals her fighting/rebellious spirit in her would be when she says,”I refused to work. I would catch no more babies and wash no more indigo vats. Appleby threatened to shave my head again, but I didn't flinch.” (Hill,261) This quote proves that she is rebellious because at this point in the after Appleby raped her, took her child, made sure she couldn't see her man, and shaved her hair that she grew out her whole life she finally decided that enough was enough and refused to work. She was beat and yelled at but she never gave up, until she was sold to a new slave owner.

Three high quality questions I would ask my character would be :

• How did it feel to lose your children?
• Why didn't you ever give up?
• You’ve been through so many hardships in your life, what gave you hope?

1. It felt like I just had a piece of me ripped out of my body. Something so sacred and beautiful that I wanted to cherish was taken away from me and I could do anything to stop it. I was half-awake and I still chased after my baby they were taken away into the carriage. I truly felt heartbroken.
2. I never gave up because there was so many other people on those ships, at those plantations, and laying on the bottom of the big rivers floor dead. I needed to avenge them, and most importantly my husband and child. I had to.
3. Books gave me hope. Reading these stories made me feel like I could be in my own little dream world, where I had control, where I had power. I was able to dream and read and write, things that I never could do but happened because of books. It gave me hope because if I continued to fight, I would be able to have that freedom that these authors had.