i
- Our narrator considers the irony of Romans using Greek slaves to teach their children about beauty.
- He plays with the hilarity of democracy being founded in this atmosphere, noticing how idealism and hatred can coexist.
- The irony of all of this continues through time to the American South, where Roman names are given to slaves, antebellum architecture is based on Athenian principles, and a legal system inherited from both ancient cultures persecutes slaves. Whew.
ii
- After all the weight of history, we return to Concord, Massachusetts… But is it any better there?
- The short answer is no, because now we return to the suffering of the Native American Indians. Stay classy, United States origins…
- The narrator gets no relief because he sees diaspora (that's fancy for groups exiled from their homelands) and deforestation.
- He feels all this as he continues to experience Catherine Weldon's life, and also when he sees the leaves falling as autumn advances in Boston and Concord.
- In that place of rebellion—remember the shot heard 'round the world?—he reflects that "all colonies inherit their empire's sin…" (208). In other words, the oppressed become oppressors.
iii
- We are back to Boston with its ivy-covered places of education and privilege.
- The narrator makes a connection between this privilege and slavery, equating the image of the lectern with the auction block.
- He emphasizes again the cyclical nature of captivity, whether it is mental or physical.