10. Frederick invited Ottilie to spend the summers at his and Anna’s home in Rochester. Why do you think Ottilie chose to accept this invitation, knowing that she would be sharing a house not only with Frederick but with Anna and their children? What did it cost Anna to have Ottilie in her home for so many years? How was Frederick able to justify inviting his mistress to share his family’s home?
11. In one instance Ottilie says, “I desired a child. Rosetta was my experiment… . Rosetta, with her father’s charm and bright mind—how could I not rescue her? Be the mother I suspected Douglass wanted me to be.” Why does Ottilie take such an interest in Rosetta? From what or whom does she believe she is “rescuing” Rosetta? Do you believe, as Ottilie does, that Douglass wanted them to have a child together?
12. When she first journeys to America, Ottilie encounters a slave, Oluwand, who commits suicide by jumping over the ship’s railing. Throughout her life Ottilie is haunted by visions of Oluwand, in one instance saying that “she’d appear in my bedroom, on the edge of my bed. Her black eyes blinking like an owl’s” (page 281). What does Oluwand represent to her, and why can’t she forget her?
13. Why do you think Frederick married Helen Pitts and not Ottilie after Anna’s death? Why do you think that, in spite of his having forsaken her, Ottilie left her estate to Frederick?
14. One of Ottilie’s diary excerpts refers to Anna by saying, “I shouldn’t have hated her. She loved him, just like me.” Anna, referring to Ottilie, says the following: “Miss Assing wasn’t a Delilah. I see that now.” In the end, do you think Anna and Ottilie come to understand each other to some degree?
15. History has remembered Frederick Douglass as a great man and abolitionist. Did reading this novel alter your opinion of Frederick Douglass?
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Douglass’ Women Page 29