Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Washington Black, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom vs. Captivity
Racism, Humanity, and Cruelty
Journeying and the Past
Family, Love, and Pain
Art, Science, and Curiosity
Summary
Analysis
Inside, Wash notices wet soil on Edgar’s palms, and a sour vinegar smell in the air. Edgar asks who Wash is, and Titch immediately gives Wash’s real name and origin, which unsettles Wash, given the bounty on Wash’s head. Edgar gives them a tour, and Titch thanks Edgar for letting them stay. Edgar asks Wash if Titch explained his peculiar habits, and Wash says that he knows Edgar studies the dead.
Here, Wash starts to realize that because he and Titch have built such a close bond, this also leaves Wash totally vulnerable if Titch decides to reveal information about themselves, as he does here. While Wash trusts Titch, the love between them also opens Wash up to a great deal of potential harm at Titch’s hands, suggesting the complexity and vulnerability of this loving relationship.
Themes
Studying Wash, Edgar says that he doesn’t care for childhood because it is a state of terrible vulnerability. Children rarely have good parents to help them grow up—he was an orphan himself. He says that sometimes, when there is a baptism, he looks upon the baby’s face and can’t stand it, knowing that such purity will never be kept intact.
Edgar’s monologue here acknowledges two things: first, that families can cause its members deep pain, such as parents who aren’t able to fulfill their responsibilities to their children. Second, Edgar highlights the pain of life experience, as all children start out innocent and pure, but over time they experience difficulty that marks them for the rest of their lives—implying perhaps that no one can truly escape their past.
Themes
Edgar then leaves to fetch bedding for his visitors, and Titch goes into the sexton’s office. There, they see a severed woman’s arm preserved in liquid in a washbasin. Wash asks if they have to stay, saying that Edgar is a madman and that he’d rather risk meeting Willard in the city than stay in the sexton’s home. Suddenly, Edgar returns to invite them for dinner, and Wash doesn’t know how much he heard.
While Wash recognizes the value in understanding natural mysteries, he also recognizes that science has its limits when it comes to experiments on humans. Though Wash values curiosity, he is troubled by a man who finds beauty in death and decay, suggesting that some things are too disturbing to try to understand.
Themes
At dinner, Edgar tells Titch that he knew they were coming—he had a sense during his morning prayers, saying that God infused the knowledge into his flesh. He notes that everyone’s bodies carry history, like Wash’s burns, or Titch’s scar across his mouth. Edgar says that it was caused between the ages of four and six, when a thick wire was pressed into his mouth and dragged back for two or three minutes before it was removed. Titch says vacantly that Edgar’s guess is remarkable.
Here, Edgar makes an idea explicit that has been running throughout the first part of the book. Scars are a literal representation of the idea that the past is inescapable: no matter how much time passes, history (particularly violence) can be read on a person’s body. Similarly, the past can make the same kind of unhealable scars on a person’s consciousness as well.
Themes
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Titch then explains their adventures: the storm, the Ave Maria, Philip’s death, and the bounty on Wash’s head—describing Willard’s soft voice, small stature, and blond hair to Edgar so he knows to look out for the man. Wash is stunned to hear Titch talk so openly about all of this. Edgar suggests that Titch tell his father about what’s happening so he can intervene, but Titch explains that his father passed away.
Wash’s thoughts here highlight his vulnerability and necessary dependence on Titch, and how Titch is still determining all of Wash’s decisions. Even though Wash is free now that he’s escaped the plantation, both Titch and Willard are preventing Wash from achieving true self-determination, and the book illustrates how fearful that makes Wash.
Themes
Hearing this, Edgar leaves the room and returns with an envelope—a letter from Titch’s father that references Titch having been nearly a year at Faith, meaning that the letter is very recent. Titch is bewildered, and Wash can see that the hope his father may be alive is almost too much for him. Titch tells Edgar that they can leave it until tomorrow, and Wash can see that Titch wants to believe in the impossible.
Here, the book highlights again how family members can both spark the most love and also the most pain in each other. Titch desperately wants to believe that his father is alive because of the love that they bear for each other, but at the same time Wash suspects that Titch is setting himself up for despair once more.
Themes
That evening, Titch falls promptly asleep, but Wash cannot. Both Edgar and the description of John Willard leave him unsettled. He can imagine Willard’s pale, expressionless face, and he drifts off before a sound startles him awake. He sees that Titch isn’t there, and Edgar enters in a wool coat and with a shovel. When Wash asks where Titch is, Edgar asks to follow him. Edgar leads him to the edge of an opened grave with a coffin in it. He says that Titch is down there, and seeing Wash’s frightened face, he assures Wash that it is a doorway before he climbs down and disappears.
Wash’s dream, followed by this exchange with Edgar, illustrates that Wash’s past continues to haunt him, and that his fear is debilitating. His worry that Edgar is leading him to a literal grave connects Wash’s fear to dying, implying that his fear is suffocating and confining him like a coffin.
Themes
Peering in, Wash sees that what he mistook for a coffin was actually a lid covering a ladder inside the grave. He drops down into the earth and descends the ladder, walking through a low, carved-out passage. At the end of the passage, Wash sees Titch, Edgar, and two runaway slaves. Wash knows what they are at once because of the way they tremble, but they are powerful men.
The runaways whom Wash meets highlight that he is not the only one who hasn’t really achieved freedom despite escaping a plantation. Fear traps and emotionally depletes these men, just like it does for Wash.
Themes
Titch introduces the runaways as Adam and Ezekiel, but the men say nothing. Titch says they are traveling north to Canada, which will make them free men. Titch says that it is a risky journey, but that it seems like a risk worth taking. Titch says that Wash should go north with the men to save his life—Titch plans to go to the Arctic to find out what happened to his father.
Titch’s suggestion that Wash should go with the other runaways is an attempt to protect Wash and help him find true freedom. But it also hints at the idea that Titch is starting to feel weighed down by Wash’s companionship, and that he is trying to find a way to make them both feel freer.
Themes
Wash realizes that Titch is saying that if Wash doesn’t go to Canada, he’ll likely die. Titch explains that so long as Wash is with him, Erasmus will be near and will not relent. Wash says if he is a free man, then it is his choice where he wants to go—even if that means hiding in the Arctic. Wash thinks in hindsight that, at this time, he thought he was making a brave choice—an act of loyalty to the only family he has. But in reality, he was just terrified at the thought of embarking on a perilous journey without Titch. Wash is resolved, and Titch is confused and pained but doesn’t say anything more.
Here, Wash believes that he is acting out of loyalty and bravery in going with Titch. But his decision actually reveals how much his fear is tethering him to Titch, since Wash doesn’t know how to survive without him. But it does nevertheless show the strength of Wash’s love and loyalty for Titch because Titch has given him so much up to this point.
Themes
