Barn Swallows and Accidents in the Life of a Slave Relationships, regardless of nature, can be as subjective as the individual participants. Furthermore, stories are usually told from a single perspective. The literary works, Swallow Barn and Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl, that will be examined in this essay are as different as black and white, figuratively and literally. It is therefore not surprising that master-slave relationships are depicted with the same degree of variation. To understand such a diverse set of paintings-literature, it is necessary to know the artists who produced the works: to include their race, social position, economic situation, politics and gender. This essay will attempt to shed light on everything. Swallow Barn, by John Pendleton Kennedy, is a romantic portrait of the Old South. (Andrews, 59) Kennedy wrote about a life he knew and from a perspective that was familiar to him. he grew up not on a plantation but in the city of Baltimore, where his father, a prosperous merchant, and his mother, who came from a highly regarded Virginia family, gave him every educational advantage; he eventually graduated first in his class from Baltimore College.” (59) “He was admitted to the bar of the state of Maryland in 1816 and later married Elizabeth Gray, the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer.” (59) According to the text, "Kennedy was no stranger to plantation life, having often visited Bower, his wife's family's ancestral home in West Virginia." (59) It can be theorized that this exposure, without total immersion, in Southern plantations suggested an aromanticized ideal of this lifestyle; hence, producing the same in Swallow Barn. This idea begins immediately for the reader with Kennedy's description of “Swallow Barn as an old aristocratic building, which squats, like a brooding hen, on the south bank of the James River. It is calmly seated in a kind of pocket or shady corner, formed by a stream, on a gentle slope freshly strewn with oaks, whose magnificent branches afford habitation and defense...” (60) In this description, the reader it can be led to suppose that the life of the inhabitants of this sanctuary is probably protected, calm and amiable. This would include the relationships of Frank Meriwether and his slaves. This is further supported by anthologists who stated, “Kennedy portrayed blacks as serene in their servitude.” (Andrews, 59) Was this intentional? I believe it was. However, these are master and slave