What becomes increasingly obvious as the narrative moves on is that this slave narrative is not all of one time period. The titular concept is no longer a romanticized one. It becomes a series of locomotives that travel to and from underground stations, a literal subterranean railroad escorting former slaves to freedom. After her first encounter with this system, Cora is shocked when she sees Whitehead’s first obvious anachronism, a skyscraper described as “one of the tallest buildings in the nation,” towering over everything with its twelve floors (86). From near the top of the Griffin Building, Cora can see “the configuration of the town and the verdant countryside for miles and miles;” the window she views this from is in a medical examination
