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
One morning, Wash is leaving his rooming house to go out to work when Tanna appears. He asks how she found him, and she sarcastically comments that she’s happy to see him, too. Wash notices that she removed the bandage from her wrist. She’s glad to be done with it, and she asks where they should go. Wash scans the road, knowing that it is risky for them to be seen together if she’s mistaken for a white woman. He also worries about John Willard finding him, knowing that he couldn’t protect her if that happened.
Again, even when Tanna is explicitly expressing her desire to be with Wash, Wash is paralyzed both by the fear of society’s reaction and the fear of John Willard coming to find him and Tanna. Again, this suggests that Wash isn’t fully free, as his fear and society’s judgment both prevent him from fulfilling Big Kit’s statement in the book’s first pages that being free means going wherever he wants and doing whatever he wants.
Themes
Tanna then pulls out a note, saying that when she’s with him she’s not always able to say what she means. Wash stares at the paper, and Tanna realizes that he can’t read. He says that he can, though inwardly he knows his reading is poor. Tanna suggests that she can teach him, and Wash is bothered by her condescension.
Although Tanna is a mixed-race woman, and though she isn’t cruel to Wash, the book shows that she, too, reinforces racist stereotypes. When she belittles Wash for not being able to read, he recognizes that her suggestion sets herself up as a superior person, despite the fact that Wash’s character and agency should not be tied to his ability to read.
Themes
Tanna explains that Goff said Wash was a slave, and she told her father that Wash could never be a slave, even if he were born in chains. Wash is upset that she seems to think that slavery is a choice, or a question of temperament, as if it weren’t an outrage. But Tanna counters, saying she only meant he is strong, and he has made so much of his life after such hardship.
As Wash points out, Tanna’s words imply that Wash could only escape slavery because he is especially brilliant or strong. However, Wash knows that he was only able to escape slavery because of luck—the fact that Titch picked him and taught him. Other enslaved people could be similarly brilliant if given the chance, which is why her suggestion that Wash is exceptional actually plays into racist stereotypes again.
Themes
After some silence, Tanna says that she and Goff will be leaving to return to London in a few weeks. They are still in need of a few specimens, and she can’t dive for them because of her wrist, and her father can’t dive because he is too old. Wash realizes that this is why she sought him out. She corrects him, saying that she wanted to give him a note and she wanted to see him because she thought he wanted to see her—but she was wrong. She walks away, leaving Wash confused.
As Tanna and Wash start to become more open about their feelings for each other, Wash realizes another way in which love and pain can mix. Despite their clear affection, Wash and Tanna both dance around exactly what they might want out of a relationship together, in a way that ends up confusing and hurting both of them.
Themes
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