Webb addresses the theme of environmentalism and conveys the assertion that African Americans are not congenitally improvident and ignorant, but instead are so because of the conditions of slavery and nature persistent racism. Webb argues against the fallacy that African Americans are inherently ignorant in terms of meaning in both irony and allusion. The most artful example of this occurs during the novel's first chapter, "In Which the Reader is Introduced to a Family of Peculiar Construction," while wealthy white gentlemen and ladies eat a light dinner.