Likeable characters with deplorable professions?

Question

I'm planning out an idea for a short story. In the story, slavery didn't abruptly end but instead continued to modern day and beyond. The structure of the story will be similar to The Last Question by Issac Asimov where the theme is explored by multiple characters over multiple time periods.

The protagonist of the first story, let's call him Nathan, is the son of a plantation owner where slaves perform only manual labour. Shortly into the short story his father dies. Unlike his father, Nathan thinks highly of the slaves and believes that with some education they could be doing taxes, engineering or general scientific research. Crucially, the slaves would remain in bondage. This idea isn't liked at first but ultimately makes Nathan rich... blah blah the rest of the story.

I'd like the reader to like Nathan despite the fact that he is still a slaver. To generalise:

Do you have any tips for keeping a protagonist likeable despite being on the wrong side of history?

Answer 1

To me the answer depends on why was slavery not abolished?

If slavery remains in practice because enlightenment failed in America and economic and racist interests won, then (from the perspective of a reader today) anyone supporting slavery must be "bad", and your protagonist can only be good if he is secretly against slavery and working towards abolishing it or at least attempting to relieve his slaves from as much of their suffering and granting them as many freedoms as possible. But then I don't see the point in your alternate history, because some slave owners in history acted that way, and all you would have done is set it at a later date.

If on the other hand your society is one where slavery is not racist and commercial, then any person can be good or bad, just as in a society without slavery. If you look at history, there are societes where slavery wasn't a result of slave trade, but of war. For example in ancient Rome, slaves where prisoners of war who were made use of, instead of being put to death or left to rot in jail. They were brought into Roman society as slaves as a way to civilize them and turn them into Romans. Their slavery was not exploitation so much as reeducation. And consequently it wasn't rare for Roman slaves to be set free eventually and even rise in society. Sure, you had the gladiators and other slaves that were used as cheap labor, but then many Roman citizens lived in much worse squalor and slaves were not treated worse than a poor Roman farmer. Because in Rome, there was no racism at the root of slavery. Slaves weren't considered animals, but people.

So if you want a "good" slave owner, then you need a society in which slavery is not based on commerce and racism. It could be a world where the United States have become an empire like the Roman empire, expanding by conquering new lands, and many African countries have been taken into that empire. Slaves then are prisoners of war from newly conquered lands. If they are educated, they are teachers of the children of the slave owners; if they are uneducated, they work in the kitchens and fields. They are treated well, sent to school (because the goal is not exploitation but education and civilization). And if they have led good American lives and acquired American values, they are eventually rewared by being set free and considered American citizens like all others.

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In brief:

If slavery is not racist but educational, and if "good" slaves are rewared by being set free and accepted as citizens, then a slave owner can be a good person, because his role is that of a supportive parent and teacher.

Answer 2

You can't judge a period character based on modern values. In a setting (real or imaginary) when slaves are owned, and society does not challenge it, it would be anachronistic for your character to refuse to own slaves. Such modern values stick out like a sore thumb.

As long as your character is not worse than the society around him, not actively sadistic, and has likeable traits (that are not related to the slaves issue), he will be likeable enough. In fact, it your character's values are too progressive, it would make him unlikeable, like a Mary Sue.

(Just to clarify, I'm not criticising your story idea. I don't know enough about it to give constructive critique. I am pointing towards what would make a character most unlikeable in my opinion.)

Answer 3

I am on the same page as Galastel. I believe that to make your character likeable, you will have to portray him as "advanced" for his time.

I could imagine someone like your character operating in the South around 1850. In that case, "tech" education of the time might be something like saddle-making, or "working on the railroad," which was better remunerated than mere agricultural labor. That is, he'd be on the "wrong side of history" today, but not for his time.

I don't see the story flying in modern times. No one will thank your character for taking away rights that were granted by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments immediately after the war, even if he gives people high tech training.

Answer 4

Have you ever read anything written before the 20^th century?
While you were reading, did the story turn you off because every single male character was "deplorable"?

It's not likely, because they were simply being normal for the time. Yet those same normal people didn't recognize women as people, didn't allow them to vote or own property, … . Everyone, men and women, were what we would now call misogynistic, but were at the time called normal people.

Except for those very few that wanted to change society, no author would ever have depicted these ordinary people as deplorable. Men naturally took it for granted that they could vote and own property, and women naturally took it for granted that they couldn't. Had their characters behaved differently, the unnatural attitude would have stuck out like a sore thumb and ruined the story.

Authors had no problem with this though, because to them this situation really was normal.

Read anything by Dickens or H.G. Wells or Defoe or Shakespeare or … . The rare times that anything resembling "women's rights" could ever appear in their works would be if the authors intentionally put it there for a very specific purpose.

When writing, point of view is so important.
When you are writing about the 17^th century, it had better sound like you are part of that time, not an observer from hundreds of years in the future.

I'd like the reader to like Nathan despite the fact that he is still a slaver.

Then don't depict him as "a slaver". Depict him as a typical citizen of his time, doing the things typical citizens did, saying the things typical citizens said, etc.

In fact, what you want Nathan to do is actually quite illegal and anti-social. It's going to be very difficult to get away with it (both for him and for you). He will appear deplorable, but that's because he wants to break the laws of society, not because he follows them.

But whatever you do, know that inserting anachronistic editorial comments into a story will ruin it.