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Fred D’Aguiar’s novel Feeding the Ghosts is a fictional retelling of a real historical event: the
Zong Massacre of 1781. This tragedy occurred during the Atlantic slave trade, when the
captain of the slave ship Zong, Luke Collingwood, ordered 131 enslaved Africans to be
thrown overboard. He claimed they were sick or dying and used this as justification to claim
insurance money for their deaths, as enslaved people were treated as cargo. This horrifying
act was exposed in Britain through a public trial and became a turning point in the fight
against slavery. Artists and abolitionists responded to the massacre, including J.M.W. Turner,
who painted The Slave Ship in 1840. His painting kept the event alive in public memory and
highlighted its moral horror. The painting’s interpretation also sparked debates, contributing
to the long-lasting legacy of the massacre.

In Feeding the Ghosts, D’Aguiar uses fiction to bring this past to life while staying close to
historical facts. He changes the names of real people slightly—for instance, Captain
Collingwood becomes Captain Cunningham, and First Mate Kelsall becomes Kelsal. However,
the most significant fictional addition is the character of Mintah, a female enslaved survivor
who plays a central role in the narrative. Unlike historical accounts, D’Aguiar gives Mintah a
voice and perspective. By doing this, he introduces emotional depth and subjectivity that the
archives cannot offer. Mintah’s point of view allows readers to connect with the trauma of
slavery in a more personal and imaginative way.

D’Aguiar’s work blends documented history with storytelling. According to scholar Wendy
Walters, this approach is linked to the “archives of the Black Atlantic”—a term that refers to
the shared memory and culture created by the African diaspora. D’Aguiar has expressed that
slavery is not just historical for him; it is a part of his personal identity and present
experience. Therefore, his novel becomes a way to both honor historical truth and explore
the emotional and cultural aftermath of slavery. Through fiction, he attempts to reconcile
factual accuracy with the need to process and represent the deep, lasting wounds of the
past.

The novel portrays the slave ship as a brutal, enclosed space where human lives are reduced
to property. This setting reflects the physical and moral confinement of slavery. In contrast,
the sea surrounding the ship is presented as a space that is both endless and in-between—
neither here nor there. It represents the Middle Passage, the journey from Africa to the
Americas, which becomes a metaphor for loss, suffering, and uncertainty. The sea also acts
as a space of memory and imagination, where the voices of the dead can be heard and
reimagined. It becomes a stage for creative remembrance, where past horrors can be re-
examined through storytelling.

Finally, Feeding the Ghosts can be seen as a "sea of stories"—a space where history is not
just told but re-routed through fiction. The phrase “road of bones” in the novel suggests that
the sea is full of the unmarked graves of enslaved people. D’Aguiar uses new narrative
techniques to bring those lost lives into focus, allowing readers to feel their presence and
pain. His poetic style helps to preserve history while also transforming it into something alive
and emotionally resonant. In this way, D’Aguiar’s novel becomes more than just a retelling of
facts; it is a powerful act of remembering and re-visioning a painful past.

“The sea is slavery”

In Feeding the Ghosts, Fred D’Aguiar explores the brutal history of slavery by declaring in the
prologue that “the sea is slavery.” This powerful metaphor, inspired by Derek Walcott’s
poetry, runs throughout the novel. The sea, once seen as a symbol of openness and
possibility, becomes a place of horror, death, and erasure for enslaved Africans. However, in
D’Aguiar’s narrative, this metaphor shifts to the image of the slave ship, which serves as a
concentrated symbol of all the violence and dehumanization of the Middle Passage.

The ship in the novel becomes a floating prison. African captives are crammed below deck in
unbearable conditions, with no air, space, or sanitation. Their bodies are packed together so
tightly that they lose individual identity and become an indistinguishable mass. The air reeks
of sweat, vomit, and human waste. Disease spreads rapidly, and death becomes an expected
part of life aboard. For these captives, the sea is not a passage to a new land but a journey
to death or endless suffering.

Violence defines every part of life on the ship. People are chained, whipped, starved, and
silenced. Women are especially vulnerable, often forced into sexual relationships for basic
necessities like food or small trinkets. Mintah, the novel’s central figure, suffers deeply—
beaten, gagged, and eventually thrown overboard for defying the ship’s authority. Her
experience is symbolic of the countless voices lost to the sea. The ship is filled with the cries
of people being thrown to their deaths, especially heart-wrenching in the case of children, as
their mothers scream in agony, calling out in many African languages.

This chaos is emphasized through the repeated listing of names, actions, and sounds, which
mimics the overwhelming noise and disorder aboard the ship. The slaves’ humanity is
further denied by the way they are treated as cargo in the trial that follows the massacre. In
court, they are called “stock,” “livestock,” and even “horses.” The captain's log, which details
losses in monetary terms, is treated as legitimate evidence, while Mintah’s personal account
is dismissed as fiction, even referred to as “a book penned by a ghost.” Her truth is rejected
because it comes from a slave, showing how colonial history silenced enslaved people and
erased their stories.

D’Aguiar also shows that the horrors of the ship affect not just the slaves, but the crew as
well. Sailors are physically abused and mentally worn down. Simon, a young kitchen helper,
is constantly beaten and insulted. Even Kelsal, the first mate, carries visible signs of guilt and
moral decay. His hunched posture reflects the emotional weight of his actions, especially as
he remembers Mintah from an earlier, more innocent time. The longer the ship sails, the
more it seems to drift not only in space but in sanity. Captain Cunningham’s cruel actions
turn him into a kind of dark magician, using his ledger to control life and death. His numbers,
instead of simply recording losses, seem to bring madness, chaos, and destruction.

By the end, the ship becomes a ghost ship—doomed to sail forever, like the legendary Flying
Dutchman, never finding peace. It drifts in circles, disconnected from reality and reason. The
novel paints a haunting picture: the sea as a vast, watery grave and the ship as a vessel of
cruelty, haunted by the souls of those who died on board.

Through this, D’Aguiar’s phrase “the sea is slavery” becomes more than a metaphor. It
captures how the ocean, the journey, and the ship itself carry the physical and emotional
scars of slavery. The novel reclaims the memory of those lost and silenced, showing how
fiction can challenge official history and give voice to the ghosts of the past.
“Maybe the sea is endless”7

In Feeding the Ghosts, Fred D’Aguiar portrays the sea not just as a setting, but as a deeply
symbolic, emotional, and psychological space. It functions as a liminal realm—both a
passage and a prison—for enslaved Africans on the Middle Passage, where time, identity,
and humanity blur. The sea is presented as both terrifying and strangely peaceful, a paradox
that underscores the horror and complexity of the transatlantic slave trade.

At the heart of the narrative is the slave ship—a floating, enclosed world marked by
movement and confinement. The ship becomes a microcosm of cruelty, disconnection, and
despair. Slaves are trapped in the ship's hold, powerless against the violence of both man
and nature. The ocean, vast and uncontrollable, mirrors their helplessness. Just as in
Edwidge Danticat’s Children of the Sea, the sea seems endless and indifferent—a place of
suffering where individuals are reduced to ghost-like figures, adrift without direction or
future.

Initially, the sea is described as peaceful, almost healing. Its saltwater is said to "wash" the
wounds inflicted by shackles, whips, and chains. However, the repeated use of “wash” hints
at a darker reality—it also erases pain through death and forgetfulness. The sea becomes a
place where suffering is not remembered but dissolved, hinting at the fear of historical
amnesia. It consumes the bodies of slaves, silencing their voices, yet paradoxically becoming
the space where their spirits remain, haunting the waters.

The sea, then, is ambiguous. It is feared by everyone, including the ship’s captain,
Cunningham, who sees it as unfathomable and evil. He becomes consumed by madness,
convinced he must "feed" the sea with bodies to prevent death from claiming them all. This
act of throwing slaves overboard turns the sea into a symbol of sacrifice and genocide,
echoing historical horrors like the Zong massacre and even the Holocaust, as Paul Gilroy
suggests. The captain's descent into insanity shows how power and guilt can corrode a
person, especially when they try to rationalize atrocity.

For characters like Mintah, the sea is more than just a threatening force—it is a space of
transformation and resistance. When thrown overboard, she experiences the sea as a
chaotic, upside-down world, far from the peaceful waters she knew as a child. The stormy
sea becomes a "non-space," a kind of hell where nothing is certain, haunted by the voices of
the dead. These voices call out, urging her to give up, yet she resists, holding on to
memories of land, wood, and grain—symbols of stability, identity, and hope.

Wood, in particular, becomes a powerful contrast to the sea. It represents land,

craftsmanship, and continuity. Mintah’s memory of carving wood with her father becomes a
grounding force, helping her hold on to her identity and ultimately save herself. By
reconnecting with the "grain" of the ship’s wood, she also reconnects with her past, which
enables her to reclaim her name and sense of self.

Thus, the sea is not just a setting in the novel—it is a character in its own right, one that
represents transition, loss, memory, and the struggle for survival. It is a place where voices
of the past echo, refusing to be forgotten. Through the image of the sea, D’Aguiar gives
presence to the silenced and the lost, turning a space of horror into one of remembrance
and imagination. In doing so, the novel challenges the dominant narratives of colonial
history and insists on hearing the stories of those who were once drowned and dismissed.

A sea of (his)story(ies)

Fred D’Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts offers a profound reinterpretation of history through
storytelling, creating a sea of narratives that challenge the boundaries between fiction and
official record. While seemingly distant from Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of
Stories, both texts share a belief in the fluid, transformative power of storytelling. Rushdie’s
metaphorical “Ocean of the Streams of Story” reflects how stories are alive, constantly
evolving and merging. D’Aguiar’s sea, however, is haunted—an archive of lost slave voices
and histories drowned in the Atlantic. This sea, drawing from Derek Walcott’s poem The Sea
is History, becomes both a literal and symbolic grave and genesis, containing not only the
remains of enslaved people but also the forgotten truths and repressed stories of the Middle
Passage.

Through intertextuality, D’Aguiar reconstructs historical memory by engaging with Walcott’s

vision and the archival gaps of the Zong massacre—a real historical atrocity where 131
enslaved Africans were thrown overboard. The trial that followed relied on compromised
testimonies, and the ship’s logbook, a potential key to the full truth, mysteriously vanished.
D’Aguiar challenges this dependence on flawed archival “evidence” by inventing documents
and introducing the voice of Mintah, a fictional survivor and chronicler. Her personal journal,
although dismissed in court, becomes the moral center of the novel. Through her, D’Aguiar
shifts the emphasis from factual history to lived, felt, and remembered experience.

Mintah evolves into the narrative’s autodiegetic voice and its most powerful storyteller. She
speaks not only for herself but for the silenced slaves, re-membering them—both recalling
and restoring them—through naming, writing, and carving wood. Her assertion “I am Ama”
exemplifies survival and self-definition, serving as a counter-gesture to erasure. Her act of
storytelling is spiritual and bodily: she becomes both the medium and the message,
embodying the collective voice of the dead.

D’Aguiar constructs a narrative polyphony, weaving multiple perspectives—from slavers to

judges, from the enslaved to the omniscient narrator—into a choral structure. This marks a
departure from the monologic slave narratives of the past. The fragmented structure and
shifting narrative voices reflect modern narrative strategies and resist singular
interpretation. Polyphony here is both internal (within the story) and external (intertextual),
referencing other Caribbean works, Turner’s painting of the Zong, and historical texts.

The novel ultimately involves the reader in the act of historical interpretation. The reader
becomes complicit, not merely observing but participating, inhabiting multiple perspectives
and experiencing narrative fragmentation. As D’Aguiar notes, slave novels splinter the
reader’s subjectivity, mirroring the fractured identities left in slavery’s wake.

The sea in Feeding the Ghosts is both a site of trauma and creativity. The blank pages it once
turned become filled with stories, transforming ephemeral memory into material testimony.
Mintah’s carvings, her voice, and D’Aguiar’s polyphonic narration defy historical silence,
affirming that stories must keep being told—not to finalize history, but to give the ghosts a
place to rest, and perhaps, to live again through the act of remembrance.
MEMORY

Fred D’Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts delves into the complex relationship between memory,
history, and imagination, with particular focus on the African diaspora experience. The
novel, based on the historical incident of the Zong slave ship, explores the traumatic event
where 132 slaves were thrown overboard to drown, allegedly to protect the ship’s remaining
cargo from illness. D’Aguiar enriches this historical event with the character of Mintah, a
slave woman who survives the ordeal, documenting her experiences in a journal. Through
Mintah’s narrative, D’Aguiar emphasizes the interplay between memory and history, raising
significant questions about how history is represented and remembered.

The epigraph of the novel, from Derek Walcott’s poem The Sea is History, speaks to the loss
and erasure of history, particularly the history of slavery, locked away in the sea. This raises a
tension between collective and personal memory. While history is often seen as an objective
record of events, memory is more subjective and personal. In contrast, collective memory is
shared and preserved by communities, but D’Aguiar, like Walcott, suggests that history is not
always easily accessible. Mintah’s survival and her act of writing are pivotal in preserving a
form of collective memory that could have otherwise been lost, offering a voice to the
silenced victims of the Zong.

Philosopher Paul Ricœur’s work on memory and history further illuminates the themes in
Feeding the Ghosts. Ricœur differentiates between memory as a personal experience and
history as a collective record. He argues that memory is shaped by time and requires active
effort to recall the past. D’Aguiar’s novel navigates this philosophical terrain by using fiction
to bridge the gap between history and memory. Through Mintah’s journal, he illustrates how
the written word becomes a crucial tool in transmitting memory, allowing future generations
to connect with the past.

Ultimately, Feeding the Ghosts reflects on the difficulties of preserving the history of
marginalized communities and the complex relationship between personal experience and
collective history. D’Aguiar uses memory, imagination, and history to re-inscribe the erased
stories of the past, offering a narrative that challenges the boundaries between lived
experience and historical record.
This text draws upon the philosophical insights of Paul Ricœur, particularly his examination
of the relationship between history, memory, and forgetting, and how these concepts
intersect within the context of both historical events and literary representations. Ricœur’s
theory highlights the complexities of transforming personal memories into historical
representations, a challenge that resonates deeply with Fred D’Aguiar’s novel Feeding the
Ghosts, which addresses the Zong massacre, a historical incident where slaves were thrown
overboard from a ship for insurance purposes.

Ricœur discusses the pivotal role of testimony in both historical and literary contexts,
emphasizing how memory, identity, and the self are interconnected in the act of bearing
witness. In Feeding the Ghosts, D’Aguiar uses the trial scene to underscore the tension
between oral and written forms of testimony, with a particular focus on the legitimacy of
Mintah’s journal as a source of historical truth. The novel critiques the rejection of such
testimonies, showcasing the difficulty of representing lived experiences within formal
historical frameworks.

Furthermore, the narrative employs a stream-of-consciousness technique to immerse the

reader in the subjective experiences of the characters, particularly Mintah. Through this
literary device, D’Aguiar explores the interface between personal memory and collective
history, drawing attention to how individuals’ internal landscapes are shaped by historical
forces. This is evident in Mintah’s perception of water and wood, which serve as metaphors
for the loss of her homeland and the continuity of her memory despite the traumatic
experiences she endures. Her memories of Africa and the slave ship become entwined,
illustrating the complex process of memory as it navigates between the individual and
collective spheres.

Ricœur’s philosophical exploration of memory and its inscription in history provides a

theoretical foundation for understanding how D’Aguiar’s novel bridges the gap between the
personal and historical. By intertwining memory with physical spaces, such as the slave ship,
D’Aguiar emphasizes the body as both a site of memory and a medium for the transmission
of collective history. The narrative underscores the importance of the “declarative phase” of
memory, where personal recollections enter the public sphere and contribute to the broader
historical record, thus facilitating the preservation of past experiences for future
generations.
The complex relationship between memory, testimony, and historical representation is thus
a central theme in both Ricœur’s theory and D’Aguiar’s novel, reflecting the struggle to
recover and articulate the voices of those silenced by history. This interplay between the
personal and the historical forms the basis for a deeper understanding of how literature and
philosophy can work together to address the legacies of traumatic historical events.

THE ZONG AND ITS ARCHIVE

Fred D’Aguiar’s *Feeding the Ghosts* (1997) emerges from a chilling moment in colonial
history: the Zong massacre of 1781, in which over 130 enslaved Africans were thrown
overboard from a British slave ship to enable the shipowners to claim insurance on their lost
"cargo." D’Aguiar reimagines the events from this historical tragedy, working against the
grain of the legal and economic archives that have defined our knowledge of the atrocity.
Instead of grounding his novel in the dominant documentation—ship ledgers, logbooks, and
court proceedings—D’Aguiar invents new narrative forms, particularly through the fictional
character Mintah, a female survivor who serves as both a literal and symbolic challenge to
the historical record.

At the heart of *Feeding the Ghosts* is the critique of how history has been recorded and
preserved. The legal archive of the Zong case centers on documents created by and for slave
traders, insurers, and colonial legal authorities—entities that dehumanized African
individuals by reducing them to insurable commodities. These records were meticulous in
their accounting of deaths, purchases, and sales, but entirely absent in personal narrative or
biographical detail. In D’Aguiar’s novel, this absence is not just a narrative gap; it is a site of
violence. The archive is shown to be complicit in the crime itself—both a record of the
massacre and a tool of its erasure. D’Aguiar’s fictional intervention therefore becomes a way
of reclaiming historical imagination from the constraints of the colonial record.
By constructing a “dream archive” through Mintah’s journal, D’Aguiar contests the
fetishization of official documentation. While modern historians long for the missing logbook
of the Zong, which vanished after the death of its captain Luke Collingwood, D’Aguiar
provocatively supplies an alternate record—not an archival fact, but a fictional truth.
Mintah’s voice disrupts the dominance of white male testimonies like that of the ship’s first
mate James Kelsall and the passenger Robert Stubbs, whose accounts—though
compromised by self-interest—form the basis of the legal version of events. Her imagined
testimony highlights the silenced perspective of the enslaved, questioning the legitimacy of
legal evidence that erased or distorted the experiences of the victims.

D’Aguiar also interrogates the role of historiography itself. Scholars like Saidiya Hartman and
Hortense Spillers have shown how the archival record of slavery is marked by excess data
but minimal biography, full of numbers yet devoid of names or humanity. Hartman has
argued for “reading against the grain” of such archives, acknowledging both their authority
and their limits. *Feeding the Ghosts* does precisely this. While the novel draws attention
to the power of the archival document, it also exposes its insufficiency—suggesting that true
justice or understanding of the Zong massacre cannot come from legal categories like “perils
of the sea” or “natural death,” which commodify suffering and erase culpability.

Moreover, D’Aguiar positions fiction not as a replacement for history, but as a parallel means
of accessing historical truth. The novel blurs the boundaries between fact and imagination,
law and morality, record and memory. It challenges the assumption that justice must stem
from evidence admissible in court, especially when that court recognizes humans only as
cargo. In doing so, *Feeding the Ghosts* performs a radical act of ethical imagination,
insisting on the importance of mourning, resistance, and remembrance beyond the ledger.

Ultimately, D’Aguiar’s novel is a counter-archive: a spectral ledger that resists the epistemic
violence of the slave trade’s documentation. It insists that some truths—particularly those
concerning trauma, rebellion, and black survival—exist outside the reach of legal language.
In giving voice to Mintah, and through her to all the unvoiced victims of the Zong, D’Aguiar
does not merely retell history. He reclaims it.

READING TRAUMA/READING RESISTANCE

The excerpt explores how contemporary Black literature and criticism approach the
historical trauma of the transatlantic slave trade—particularly focusing on the Zong
massacre—by not only acknowledging the suffering and loss, but also recovering narratives
of survival and resistance. Scholars like Hortense Spillers and Saidiya Hartman have criticized
how colonial archives (like trader’s ledgers) show little interest in the lives and voices of the
enslaved. Yet, modern writers and critics show a deep concern for those erased or silenced
voices. They aim to reimagine the “other side of the page” through literature, memory, and
cultural tradition.

The Zong massacre—where over 130 enslaved Africans were thrown overboard for
insurance claims—has become a symbol of Middle Passage trauma. Anita Rupprecht
describes the Zong not just as a legal case or abolitionist tool, but as a “murder site” and a
powerful image of suffering and loss. Many scholars read this event as representative of the
entire Black Atlantic experience, and literature such as Fred D’Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts is
seen as a way to memorialize that trauma. Critics like Stef Craps argue that such works keep
the memory of this suffering alive in the present, creating a sense of haunting.

However, the author of this passage challenges the idea that the Middle Passage should only
be remembered as a traumatic “origin” of the African diaspora. While trauma is an
undeniable part of the history, the focus on pain may come from relying too heavily on the
written archive—the records kept by oppressors. Saidiya Hartman acknowledges that the
mathematical data in these archives points to suffering but also to survival. The author
suggests that remembering survival and resistance is just as important as remembering
trauma. Jenny Sharpe, for instance, talks about recognizing resistance while still
understanding the power imbalance between enslavers and the enslaved.

Rupprecht, in other work, also reads resistance into the history of the slave trade by
analyzing insurance documents. She shows that rebellion on slave ships left its mark even in
the legal records. But the author of this text argues that resistance is even more deeply
embedded in Black Atlantic cultural memory—not just in economic documents. Oral
traditions, stories, and cultural practices have preserved the memory of rebellion, not just
victimhood. The author critiques how white abolitionists preferred to present enslaved
people as passive victims, which erased stories of active resistance. Michelle Cliff’s character
Mary Ellen Pleasant directly rejects this narrative, insisting that submission was never their
mode.

Further, relying only on British abolitionist figures like Granville Sharp to tell the Zong story
removes African agency. Films like Amistad are criticized for suggesting that only white
people shaped history. Tim Armstrong also warns that framing the Zong solely as part of
abolitionist history creates a spectacle of suffering, rather than highlighting Black resistance.

Modern scholars and even economic historians have found evidence of frequent slave
rebellions on ships. For example, research by Behrendt, Eltis, and Richardson shows that
shipboard revolts happened in about one out of every ten voyages. This proves that
resistance was not rare, but expected. D’Aguiar’s novel Feeding the Ghosts captures this
truth through imagination, not data. His portrayal of the Zong includes not just death and
suffering but also rebellion, survival, and moments of human connection—even across racial
lines.

In summary, the passage argues for a more balanced way of reading the history of slavery.
While trauma must be acknowledged, it is equally important to remember resistance,
survival, and agency. Literature like Feeding the Ghosts helps reclaim these stories from a
past too often told only by the oppressors.

Character Sketch of Simon in Feeding the Ghosts

Simon, a cook’s assistant on the slave ship Zong, is one of the few crew members who
demonstrates empathy and humanity in the brutal environment of the Middle Passage.
Though he is part of the ship’s crew, his low-ranking position places him outside the circles
of power. This role is significant—it allows him to witness the cruelty and injustice inflicted
on the enslaved people, yet he is not directly responsible for the violence. His work in the
kitchen, a space associated with sustaining life, stands in stark contrast to the destruction
surrounding him. In this way, Simon symbolizes the quiet possibility of kindness and moral
resistance even within oppressive systems.

Simon’s character is further developed through his emotional bond with Mintah, one of the
enslaved women. Mintah is a central figure in the novel who survives being thrown
overboard and becomes a voice of resistance and memory. The relationship between Simon
and Mintah is subtle yet meaningful. While their connection does not lead to any dramatic
rescue or escape, it hints at the potential for understanding across boundaries of power,
race, and suffering. Their relationship adds a layer of hope and complexity to a narrative
otherwise dominated by horror and loss.

The novel’s prologue sets the tone for this layered meaning. D’Aguiar writes that the sea
itself is slavery, suggesting that the ocean is not just a setting for the Middle Passage but a
metaphor for its trauma and unending impact. The sea becomes both a physical and
symbolic space of terror, memory, and resistance. Simon, in his relationship with Mintah,
becomes part of D’Aguiar’s effort to offer a small sense of reconciliation between the
enslaved and their captors, and between the sea and the land. However, as the novel
progresses, this reconciliation is shown to be incomplete. The healing or resolution that the
characters—and perhaps the reader—long for is never fully realized.

This lack of closure is not a flaw but a deliberate narrative choice. Scholar Ian Baucom
suggests that D’Aguiar, through Feeding the Ghosts, is not just telling a story about the sea
and land, or about victims and perpetrators, but about the deeper struggle between the sea
and history. This struggle is elusive and difficult to resolve because the sea, as D’Aguiar sees
it, holds the ghosts of slavery in a way that history books cannot. D’Aguiar seems to be in
dialogue with poet Derek Walcott’s The Sea is History, from which he borrows an epigraph.
Unlike Walcott’s poem, which avoids directly naming the Zong or slavery, D’Aguiar confronts
these subjects head-on, using characters like Simon to explore survival, resistance, and the
tension between remembering and forgetting.

In this context, Simon represents the quiet thread of resistance woven through the fabric of
horror. Though his role is small, it is vital—he helps the narrative move beyond pure
victimhood and into a space where humanity can still be glimpsed, even if healing remains
out of reach.

Note on Simon’s Guilt in Feeding the Ghosts (approx. 400 words)

Simon, the cook’s assistant aboard the Zong, is a deeply conflicted character in Fred
D’Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts. While he is not a direct perpetrator of the atrocities
committed on the ship, he is nonetheless a participant in a brutal system. His guilt arises not
from acts of violence but from his proximity to them—and from his inability to stop them.

Simon’s guilt is complex and layered. As someone who assists with feeding the crew and
likely the enslaved at times, he plays a practical role in the day-to-day functioning of the
ship. However, he is also a silent witness to the horror unfolding around him. The systematic
drowning of slaves, carried out under the guise of protecting financial interests through
insurance claims, leaves an emotional mark on Simon. He does not share the cruelty or
indifference of the ship’s officers, but he is painfully aware that his own survival depends on
his compliance. This internal conflict fosters a deep sense of guilt.

His bond with Mintah, a rebellious and resilient enslaved woman, further intensifies his
emotional burden. Through their limited but meaningful interactions, Simon begins to see
the enslaved not as cargo but as human beings with voices, memories, and histories.
Mintah's courage and strength force him to confront the moral gap between what is
happening and what he feels is right. His guilt, then, is not just survivor’s guilt but also moral
guilt—he knows the killings are wrong, yet he remains powerless to stop them.

Simon’s guilt is also symbolic. He represents the many ordinary people who are part of
unjust systems—not out of hatred, but out of fear, survival, or passivity. His character invites
readers to question complicity and the boundaries between victim, bystander, and
perpetrator. In one sense, Simon’s guilt humanizes him, showing that even within systems of
dehumanization, some retain a conscience. Yet this guilt also serves as a reminder that
empathy without action is not enough to bring about justice or change.

Ultimately, Simon's guilt adds emotional depth to the novel. It prevents a simplistic division
between good and evil and reflects D’Aguiar’s broader aim: to portray the legacy of slavery
not only through trauma and loss but also through memory, resistance, and the inner lives of
those who witnessed it without stopping it. Simon’s guilt is the cost of his awareness—and
of his silence.

Reflect on how the choice of the genre of the slave novel enables Fred D'Aguiar to
problematise the history of transatlantic slavery in Feeding the Ghosts

Fred D’Aguiar’s Feeding the Ghosts uses the genre of the slave novel to reflect on and
challenge how the history of transatlantic slavery is remembered and told. The slave novel, a
form of historical fiction, allows D’Aguiar to go beyond recorded facts and bring to life the
human emotions, voices, and memories that are often missing in the official archives.
Through this genre, D’Aguiar not only recreates the horrors of the slave trade but also
questions how history has been written, who gets to tell it, and what is left out.

The novel is based on the real-life Zong massacre of 1781, in which over 130 enslaved
Africans were thrown overboard from a British slave ship so that the ship owners could claim
insurance money. Historical records of this event are limited, focusing mostly on the legal
and financial aspects rather than the human suffering involved. D’Aguiar uses fiction to fill in
the gaps, imagining the inner lives, struggles, and resistance of the enslaved people,
especially through the character of Mintah. This creative approach allows him to restore
some of the humanity that the historical documents erase.

By choosing the slave novel as his form, D’Aguiar also addresses the limitations of the
written archive. Historical documents about slavery were mostly created by slave owners,
traders, and colonial powers. These documents reduce people to numbers, property, or
statistics, as seen in the cold legal language of the Zong case. The slave novel, however,
allows D’Aguiar to challenge this form of record-keeping by giving voice to the voiceless and
telling the story from the perspective of the enslaved. This shift in focus helps to highlight
not only the trauma of slavery but also the strength, resistance, and survival of the
oppressed.
D’Aguiar also uses elements of memory, dreams, and spiritual connections to challenge the
idea that history is only what is written down. The novel includes scenes of Mintah surviving
the sea and remembering the dead, keeping their stories alive. These elements blur the lines
between the living and the dead, between past and present. In doing so, D’Aguiar suggests
that the effects of slavery are not just historical but continue to haunt the present. This
“haunting” is a key theme in postcolonial and black Atlantic literature, and the slave novel is
an ideal form to explore it.

Another important way the genre helps D’Aguiar problematize history is by focusing on the
emotional and psychological impact of slavery. Historical texts often focus on dates,
numbers, and events, but the novel shows what it felt like to be on the ship, to lose loved
ones, to face death, and to resist dehumanization. Through characters like Mintah and
Simon (the cook’s assistant), D’Aguiar presents a layered view of the past, where people are
not just victims but also fighters, thinkers, and survivors. The slave novel thus becomes a
tool to restore emotional truth to a history often told without feeling.

Moreover, the novel shows that the legacy of slavery is not only about loss and trauma, but
also about endurance and memory. By using fiction to tell the story of the Zong, D’Aguiar
brings attention to how some stories were never recorded at all. This invites readers to think
about what it means to “know” history. Can history only be made up of facts? Or can
imagination, memory, and storytelling also be valid ways of understanding the past?

In Feeding the Ghosts, the slave novel becomes a way to resist forgetting. D’Aguiar does not
offer a neat ending or easy resolution because the effects of slavery are ongoing. He
suggests that writing and reading about slavery must involve not just mourning the dead but
also remembering their struggle and carrying their memory into the present. Through the
genre of the slave novel, he turns the Zong from a historical event into a living memory, one
that continues to demand justice, attention, and reflection.

In conclusion, Fred D’Aguiar’s use of the slave novel allows him to question and reshape how
we understand the history of transatlantic slavery. By combining fact and fiction, trauma and
resistance, silence and speech, he brings to light the deep emotional and cultural impact of
slavery. The slave novel is not just a genre for telling stories; in D’Aguiar’s hands, it becomes
a powerful way to reclaim lost voices and challenge the official record of history.
ACT OF WRITING

In Feeding the Ghosts, the act of writing holds deep importance. Fred D’Aguiar uses writing
not only as a way to tell a story but also as a form of remembrance, resistance, and healing.
Writing in this novel becomes a tool to recover silenced voices, fill in the gaps left by history,
and challenge the way the past has been recorded and remembered.

The novel is based on the historical event of the Zong massacre, where over 130 enslaved
Africans were thrown overboard a slave ship so that the crew could claim insurance for their
deaths. This event was recorded in legal and insurance documents, but these records
focused only on property loss, not human life. D’Aguiar’s writing brings back the humanity
that those records erased. Through fiction, he gives names, feelings, and thoughts to the
enslaved people, especially through the character of Mintah. In this way, the act of writing
becomes an act of justice—restoring dignity to those who were dehumanized.

Writing also allows D’Aguiar to challenge the power of the official archive. History is often
told from the point of view of the powerful, and in the case of slavery, that means the
records come mostly from slave traders and colonizers. These records are cold and distant,
focused on numbers and money. D’Aguiar’s novel, on the other hand, is emotional, personal,
and centered on the enslaved. By choosing fiction, he can write what was left out—feelings,
resistance, relationships, and memories. Writing here is not just about facts; it’s about truth
and meaning.

Another important role of writing in the novel is memory. The title Feeding the Ghosts itself
suggests that the past is not dead. The ghosts of those killed on the Zong still linger, and they
need to be remembered. Writing is a way to feed those ghosts—to give them life again
through storytelling. Mintah, who survives being thrown into the sea, becomes a kind of
memory keeper. Her written account of what happened on the ship challenges the official
version and ensures that the truth is not forgotten. This shows how writing can be a form of
survival and resistance.

Finally, D’Aguiar uses writing to connect the past to the present. The novel’s language is
poetic and filled with haunting images, creating a sense that the trauma of slavery is still
with us. The act of writing becomes a bridge between the past and the present, helping
readers understand that the effects of slavery are ongoing. By writing this story, D’Aguiar
invites readers to remember, reflect, and continue the conversation.

In conclusion, the act of writing in Feeding the Ghosts is powerful and meaningful. It helps to
recover lost voices, question official history, preserve memory, and connect the past with the
present. Through writing, D’Aguiar turns history into something living, emotional, and
human. Writing becomes a way to honor the dead, challenge injustice, and keep the story
alive for future generations.

CRITICALLY COMMENT ON THE GENDERED NATIRE OF RESISTANCE IN THE NOVEL

In *Feeding the Ghosts*, Fred D’Aguiar explores resistance not just as a physical act of revolt
but also as a complex, gendered experience. The novel’s portrayal of resistance involves
both men and women, but it reveals how gender influences the ways in which characters
resist and survive the trauma of transatlantic slavery. Through his characters, D’Aguiar
highlights that resistance is not a uniform experience; instead, it is shaped by the gendered
roles that individuals are forced to play within the confines of the slave system.

One of the most significant gendered dynamics in the novel is seen through the character of
Mintah, a female enslaved person. Mintah’s resistance is deeply personal and emotional,
embodying a kind of quiet resilience. She does not engage in the overt physical rebellion
that is often associated with male resistance. Instead, her resistance takes the form of inner
strength, survival, and a continuous mental fight against the brutal forces of enslavement.
Her memories, her agency in surviving the horrors of the Middle Passage, and her act of
remembering and bearing witness to the atrocities that occurred on the Zong become her
form of resistance. Mintah’s resistance is quieter but no less powerful; it challenges the
traditional view of resistance as a physical, often violent, confrontation.

On the other hand, male characters, particularly Simon, take on more overtly physical and
confrontational roles in the narrative. Simon is a cook’s assistant, and his interactions with
the other enslaved people reveal a different type of resistance. His role in the novel is more
grounded in the physical reality of the ship and the conditions the enslaved people endure.
While Simon’s resistance is initially shown through his care for others and his occasional
defiance against his oppressors, it also reflects the pressure placed on men to take active,
visible roles in resistance. However, the fact that Simon’s resistance is not as successful or
impactful as Mintah’s suggests that male resistance is not always as powerful or decisive as it
might appear. In fact, both his physical and psychological struggles are undermined by the
larger forces of slavery, which disempower both men and women in different ways.

The novel also critiques how enslaved women are often denied the same forms of resistance
afforded to men. For instance, the role of motherhood and femininity is another aspect of
gendered resistance in *Feeding the Ghosts*. Mintah, in particular, is depicted as a mother
figure, and the idea of motherhood becomes a source of strength for her. However, it also
complicates her resistance, as the maternal role in the context of slavery can be both
empowering and enslaving. Mothers, especially women like Mintah, are faced with the
constant trauma of watching their children suffer or be taken away from them. The maternal
bond, while deeply empowering, also places limits on how women can resist. Their
resistance, thus, is often channeled through their care and protection of their children, a
form of resistance that requires emotional labor rather than physical action.

In this sense, D’Aguiar does not romanticize the role of women in resistance. Instead, he
shows how women’s resistance is shaped by their gendered roles within the oppressive
system. Unlike their male counterparts, enslaved women often have to navigate the added
burden of reproduction and motherhood while resisting their enslavement. This dynamic
reflects the unique challenges women face, where their bodies are not only sites of forced
labor but also sites of sexual exploitation and reproduction.

Moreover, the novel also addresses the gendered power structures within the slave trade.
The shipboard dynamics are hierarchical, and women experience specific forms of
exploitation that men do not. They are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, and their
resistance is often more covert. Their strength lies in survival, solidarity with other women,
and the act of bearing witness. By positioning Mintah and other female characters at the
center of the narrative, D’Aguiar draws attention to the particular forms of resistance that
women employ, which are often overlooked in historical accounts of slavery that focus on
men’s actions.

However, it is important to note that gendered resistance in *Feeding the Ghosts* is not
limited to passive survival. The novel intricately blends gendered experience with collective
resistance, suggesting that both men and women must come together to resist slavery’s
totalizing violence. While Mintah’s resistance is quieter, it complements Simon’s more
outward defiance, showing that resistance is multifaceted. Both characters represent
different aspects of enslaved people's struggle, with gender influencing how each resists,
survives, and ultimately makes sense of the trauma they endure.

In conclusion, Fred D’Aguiar’s *Feeding the Ghosts* presents a complex and nuanced
portrayal of resistance that is shaped by gender. Women, particularly Mintah, resist through
quiet survival and memory, while men like Simon take on more direct, physical forms of
resistance. The novel highlights the unique gendered experiences of resistance in the
context of slavery, illustrating that women’s resistance is often shaped by their roles as
mothers and caregivers. By doing so, D’Aguiar underscores that resistance in slavery is not a
singular experience but one that is deeply influenced by gendered expectations and roles.

PROLOGUE

The prologue of *Feeding the Ghosts* by Fred D'Aguiar plays a crucial role in setting the
tone and framing the central themes of the novel. The first line of the prologue, which
states, "The sea is slavery," establishes a metaphor that underpins much of the novel's
exploration of the Middle Passage and the experiences of the enslaved people aboard the
Zong. By opening with this powerful statement, D’Aguiar immediately immerses the reader
in the harrowing reality of the transatlantic slave trade, suggesting that the sea itself is both
the literal and symbolic space of enslavement.

The prologue sets up the novel's central conflict, which is the tension between the sea (a
vast and dangerous expanse of water) and the land (a place of enslavement, human
suffering, and historical trauma). This sea is not merely a geographical feature but a force
that represents the dehumanization, violence, and loss that defined the experience of
slavery. By identifying the sea as a manifestation of slavery, D'Aguiar suggests that the entire
process of the transatlantic slave trade is a kind of deep, ongoing trauma that affects the
enslaved and their descendants across time.

The prologue also draws attention to the cyclical and never-ending nature of the trauma
caused by slavery. The repetition of the sea as a symbol of enslavement reinforces the idea
that the legacy of the past continues to haunt the present. The sea, as a setting of both the
passage and the trauma of slavery, serves as a boundary between two worlds—the world of
the enslaved, whose bodies and experiences are marked by suffering, and the world of their
captors, who remain largely indifferent to the horrors they inflict.

Another key aspect of the prologue is its connection to Derek Walcott's poem "The Sea is
History," which is referenced in the novel. D’Aguiar engages with Walcott's idea, using it as a
way to reflect on the power of history, memory, and the sea in shaping the identity and
experience of black people in the diaspora. In doing so, D’Aguiar situates his novel within the
broader discourse of Atlantic slavery and its literary representations, acknowledging the
profound and lasting effects of this history on future generations.

Furthermore, the prologue’s introduction of the Zong massacre as a central event in the
narrative prepares the reader for the exploration of the brutality and inhumanity that marks
the history of slavery. By establishing the sea as a space of death and suffering, D’Aguiar
prepares the reader for the complex moral and emotional terrain the novel will navigate,
where the very concept of human life is warped and distorted.

In sum, the prologue of *Feeding the Ghosts* is a vital introduction to the novel’s themes. It
uses the metaphor of the sea as slavery to set up the central conflict of the story and to
reflect on the historical and psychological impact of slavery. It links the narrative to the
broader cultural and literary history of the Atlantic slave trade while also giving the reader a
sense of the haunting, cyclical nature of trauma. Through this powerful opening, D’Aguiar
invites the reader to grapple with the long-lasting effects of slavery, while setting the stage
for the characters' personal and collective struggles with memory, resistance, and survival.

By giving voice to his heroine Mintah, a Fetu slave girl, D'Aguiar "creates a counter-
memory to Britain's official memory." Do you agree? Give a reasoned answer.

In Feeding the Ghosts, Fred D'Aguiar gives voice to Mintah, a Fetu slave girl, and through her
character, he indeed creates a counter-memory to Britain’s official memory of the
transatlantic slave trade. The concept of "official memory" refers to the dominant narrative
constructed by the ruling class or state, which often obscures or distorts the experiences of
marginalized groups. In the case of Britain, the official memory of slavery has traditionally
focused on the role of abolitionists, the heroism of individuals like Granville Sharp, and the
eventual end of the slave trade in the 19th century. What has been left out of this narrative,
however, are the voices of the enslaved individuals, their suffering, their resistance, and
their agency. D’Aguiar, through Mintah, challenges this official memory and provides a more
complex, humanized account of the transatlantic slave trade, particularly by focusing on the
enslaved people’s experiences and their unspoken histories.

Mintah's voice in the novel is significant because she is not just a passive victim of
enslavement; she is a character with agency, emotions, and a narrative of survival. This
challenges the stereotypical portrayal of slaves as mere objects or victims of history. Often,
the historical accounts of slavery emphasize the inhumane conditions, the brutality, and the
helplessness of the enslaved people. However, these accounts are typically shaped by the
perspective of the enslavers and abolitionists, who focus on the moral wrongs of the system,
sometimes overlooking the resistance and endurance of the enslaved. By focusing on
Mintah’s experiences, D’Aguiar allows for a more nuanced perspective that highlights the
resilience, defiance, and strength of the enslaved people.

Mintah’s character is a direct counterpoint to the more sanitized, heroic memory of British
abolitionism. She represents the millions of enslaved people whose voices were silenced in
the official historical narrative. Through her, D'Aguiar reclaims that lost history, offering a
voice to those who suffered but were never acknowledged as historical agents. Mintah’s
story is not just one of passive suffering; it is also one of resistance and survival. Her
personal experiences, thoughts, and struggles provide an alternative, often suppressed,
memory of the Middle Passage and the brutal conditions on board the slave ships. In this
sense, she becomes a symbol of the many individuals whose lives were defined by the
trauma of the transatlantic slave trade but who also exhibited remarkable resilience and
endurance.

One of the key ways D’Aguiar creates a counter-memory is through the portrayal of the Zong
massacre. The historical event, in which enslaved Africans were thrown overboard by the
crew of the Zong ship for the sake of saving supplies and insurance profits, is a pivotal
moment in the novel. The British abolitionists’ response to the Zong massacre often
minimized or distorted the perspective of the enslaved individuals. In official records and
narratives, the emphasis was on the moral outrage of the British public, the legal
proceedings, and the economic consequences of the massacre. What was often left out was
the suffering and resistance of the enslaved individuals involved. In Feeding the Ghosts, the
event is refracted through the lens of Mintah’s personal experience, which transforms the
massacre from a historical fact to a deeply personal and traumatic moment in the lives of
those who endured it. This representation of the Zong massacre humanizes the enslaved,
providing a voice to those who were often reduced to statistics or mere symbols in the
official memory.

Moreover, by giving voice to Mintah, D’Aguiar complicates the simplistic binary between
victimhood and heroism. While many slave narratives, particularly those of the abolitionists,
focus on the idea of the enslaved as passive victims or heroes who eventually escaped or
triumphed, Mintah’s character refuses to fit neatly into these categories. She embodies the
complexity of enslaved existence: the pain, the resistance, the survival instincts, and the
longing for freedom. Mintah’s voice offers a more comprehensive and authentic portrayal of
the emotional and psychological scars of slavery. She is not defined solely by her suffering;
instead, she is a character shaped by her experiences, her memories, and her struggle to
maintain a sense of self in the face of dehumanizing conditions.

In addition to Mintah, the narrative’s structure itself serves as a counter-memory to official

British history. D'Aguiar’s novel is not a linear retelling of the slave trade or the Zong
massacre. Instead, it weaves together different perspectives, timeframes, and voices,
creating a complex tapestry of memory and trauma. This fragmented, non-linear storytelling
mirrors the fragmented and often incomplete nature of the historical record, where the
voices of the enslaved are often missing or distorted. By structuring the novel in this way,
D’Aguiar emphasizes the idea that history, particularly the history of slavery, is not a fixed,
linear narrative but one that is continually reinterpreted, contested, and reconstructed.

D’Aguiar also challenges the official memory by presenting the sea itself as a character in the
novel. The sea is described not only as the setting for the Middle Passage but also as a
symbolic force of enslavement, death, and memory. It represents both the physical journey
of the enslaved and the enduring trauma that continues to affect future generations. The
sea, as a symbol of the inescapable cycle of history, contrasts with the more simplistic
narrative of British progress and moral righteousness. In this way, the sea becomes a
metaphor for the erased history of the enslaved, a history that refuses to be forgotten or
ignored.

In conclusion, Fred D’Aguiar, through the voice of Mintah, does indeed create a counter-
memory to Britain’s official memory of slavery. By focusing on the personal experiences of
an enslaved girl, the novel challenges the dominant narrative of British abolitionism,
reclaiming the voices and histories of the enslaved. Mintah’s story is one of resistance,
survival, and resilience, and through her, D’Aguiar offers a more nuanced and humanized
account of the history of the transatlantic slave trade. This counter-memory is not just a
rejection of the official history but a call to remember the complexities, traumas, and
legacies of slavery that continue to shape the present.