MashableReads discussion

Throughout The Good Lord Bird, McBride satirizes John Brown's abolitionist quest. For instance, Onion frequently notes that he was more comfortable in slavery than when he was freed (or kidnapped) by John Brown.

What do you think McBride is saying about fighting for a cause in The Good Lord Bird? What is he critiquing?

This ties into the idea that not all people who want to accomplish good things are good people, and the end doesn't justify the means.

Although John Brown wants to free all slaves, he doesn't consider that all slaves may not want to literally "fight" for their freedom. They have families, hopes, dreams, they don't all want to fight to the death for the good of all enslaved people.

John Brown's character assumes that his way is the only way and he does not consider the complexity of the issue from the perspective of a slave. He assumes that he knows best despite not belonging to the group that he is fighting for.

John Brown is just such a tough historical figure to write about. On the one hand he was a leader and a hero. On the other hand, no matter the rightness of his cause, he was a fanatic often using the rightness of his cause and his fundamentalist beliefs to rationalize actions that led to the death of innocents.

In satire a miss is as good as mile. McBride doesn't miss. We come to love and respect Brown as much as Henry does, but it's not a hagiographic portrait. I think he shows us an awesomely brave hero who is also a fanatic. He causes us to question and to think.

I also found his take on other historic icons interesting. His portrait of Douglass is not exactly complimentary, either.

History is made by people who may be flawed, and even those on the right side of history may be far from perfect human beings.

Moreover, Brown is a tricky figure. Some historians view him as a monomaniacal zealot, while others consider his strategy (armed insurrection against slaveholders) effective in that it helped lead to the civil war -- and the end of slavery. McBride manages to show us both sides of Brown. The perceptive human being, and the fanatic. We may like Henry think he's something of a fool, but by the end he reveals himself to have been pretty wise.