“On a grey morning in March 1850, a colored slave named Liz Spocott dreamed of the future. And it was not pleasant.” 

The novel opens with these sentences, which immediately set up the storyline. The reader knows the era that the story takes place in, the name of the central character, what the driving force of the plot will be, and the tone of the story. The word choice is striking. Calling a dream of the future unpleasant is contrary to both the words “dream” and “future,” because both have positive connotations. An unpleasant dream is called a nightmare, so using the word “dream” establishes dreaming as an important element of the story. 

"A closed face is how you survive, her uncle Hewitt told her. The heart can heal, but a closed face is a shield, he’d said.” 

Liz is a slave and like most slaves, she learned from birth how to behave in ways that would help guard her survival. Particularly when dealing with whites, Liz learned not to show her emotions, not to speak her true thoughts, not to let any part of what she felt appear in her facial expressions. Her Uncle Hewitt had taught her that even though suppressing one’s emotions and thoughts can be humiliating and damaging to the heart, keeping a closed face will ensure survival.