The Weight of Water

Mama’s laundry bag symbolizes memory and identity. At the very beginning of The Weight of Water, Mama lugs the laundry bag and another suitcase while traveling through Gdańsk Główny, while she insists that Kasienka only carry a small bag of her own. Their baggage represents what the two of them are bringing from Poland to England both literally and figuratively. On the literal level, what few clothes and household possessions they can afford to bring are in those bags, but figuratively, they seem to suggest a different sort of weight: experience. Mama is older than Kasienka, and it’s fitting that she valiantly try to carry more than her daughter—but Kasienka can see that the laundry bag is fraying and falling apart, making lugging it through the station especially difficult. As Kasienka and Mama are leaving Gdańsk Główny, the breaking of the laundry bag suggests a breakdown of identity and a departure from the past that is already in motion. Leaving Poland means starting fresh as strangers in a strange place, and especially in a country like England that doesn’t necessarily always welcome immigrants with enthusiasm, Kasienka and Mama can’t bring their Polish lives and realities with them. Still, Mama tries to keep the laundry bag together by force of will until she and Kasienka are at the baggage claim in Stansted. As soon as Mama realizes that people around them are goggling at their beaten-up bag, she decides to leave it behind entirely so she can avoid claiming it in front of everyone. In the same way, she avoids drawing attention to her Polishness as much as she can, urging Kasienka to keep her head down and do the same. As they leave the airport, Mama suggests to Kasienka that, since the laundry bag was full of Polish winter clothes, it wasn’t useful for England’s soggy weather anyway. Her attitude toward the bag suggests an eagerness to assimilate into English culture, even if it comes at the expense of her own Polish cultural identity. Leaving behind the bag represents a phenomenon that many immigrants experience: finding themselves forced to downplay or part with aspects of their own culture under the pressure of conformity and observation.