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
Titch offers Tanna the back room with the cot, while Wash can sleep on the settee in the front room and Titch will sleep alongside the boy and the guide in a tent outside. Wash has trouble falling asleep, but he eventually dreams of Ocean House as a huge, shimmering glass structure. Big Kit is beside him in a state of calm. Her eyes are bright, but she doesn’t look at Wash. Wash stands quietly beside her, looking at their reflections in the glass panes.
The fact that Wash dreams of Big Kit while he is in Morocco further illustrates how Titch’s betrayal and Big Kit are tied in Wash’s mind. Like Titch, Big Kit won’t really look at him in his dream—an inherent acknowledgement that both of them know that they hurt Wash, and Wash can only ever really see a facsimile of them—Big Kit in the glass panes, and Titch as a new, altered version of himself. That Wash and Big Kit are in Ocean House suggests the idea that Wash shouldn’t spend more time trying to confront his past—instead, he should seek out resolution and purpose in what he is doing in the present.
Themes
Wash wakes with a start and tries to find the front door, but instead he finds the door to the back room. Tanna wakes, and Wash goes to lie with her, kissing her hand. She remarks that England feels far away, and he agrees. She asks if he despises her for being kind to Titch, but he says that he loves her for being so decent and merciful. She replies that she’s never seen such intense pain in a man’s eyes.
In recognizing how far he has taken Tanna away from London, Wash sees how his travels have started to exhaust her. Wash and Tanna’s dynamic now mirrors Titch and Wash’s old dynamic—he is dragging her around the world just as Titch dragged Wash around the world. Thus, Wash is repeating his past, illustrating another way in which his past, and the lack of belonging that has resulted from his past, is repeating itself.
Themes
Tanna asks if this is what Wash imagined, and he says no. He understands what she doesn’t want to ask—if he has found what he was seeking, if this trip would calm his restlessness, or if they would continue to drift through the world without a home. He tells her that he’s sorry for coming to Morocco, but she has already fallen back asleep.
Here, Wash recognizes how futile coming to Morocco was, as he understands that he will never truly be able to get answers from Titch. Moreover, the constant journeying has only succeeded in making him rootless. In this way, the book illustrates how journeying doesn’t always allow people to move on from the past; often they simply try to keep confronting it instead.
Themes
Just then, Wash notices a door beyond Tanna’s cot, and he walks out into the night, gazing at the bright stars. In the dark, he sees another room filled with light, and he finds dozens of scientific instruments, papers, and scales. Black sheets with blots of white on them are nailed to the walls. Next to them is a portrait of the boy, his eyes clear, his right cheek distorted, as though light attacked one side of his face.
As Wash discovers some of Titch’s recent work, the book illustrates how Titch is still trying to use both art and science to understand the world’s mysteries. The portrait of the boy also suggests that despite Titch’s attempts to journey far away from his past life, he is still haunted by his past. Even though the portrait is of the young Moroccan boy, the distortion on the right cheek recalls Wash’s scars, suggesting that Titch couldn’t let go of Wash entirely.
Themes
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Titch steps into the room, still dressed. He explains that the sheets with the blots of white are images of the moon, which he made by treating copper with fumes and exposing it at midnight—but he notes the process works much better with human faces. He wants the moon images to be sharper. Wash notes that human faces are more interesting, and Titch counters that looking at one face privileges that one over another. Wash asks if the boy is his assistant, and Titch nods. He says, though, that he didn’t want Wash to think that he simply replaced Wash.
Titch’s statement is ironic, because as he says, looking at one face privileges it over another. In this way, Titch shows that he now cares more for the young boy than he does for Wash, because he rendered the boy’s face on the images—despite his assertion that he didn’t simply replace Wash. This again shows how hurtful and complicated families can be, because Titch believed he could simply remove Wash from his life without repercussions, but as a result, Wash feels completely abandoned.
Themes
Wash asks if Titch is happy, and Titch says that there are many kinds of happiness, and sometimes people aren’t able to choose the happiness granted to them. Wash asks where Titch went after he left Mr. Wilde’s camp in the Arctic—a search party was sent out, but they never found him. Titch stays quiet, until Wash points out that he came all this way for answers. Titch says he knew Wash would never leave him, so he couldn’t go in a simple way. Wash concludes that it was a ruse, then, but Titch says nothing.
Titch admits that part of the reason that he abandoned Wash was because he felt burdened by Wash clinging to him. This again illustrates how they were both captive to each other—Wash reliant on Titch for his survival and well-being and Titch burdened by having to take care of Wash. And in showing how emotionally damaging the fallout of splitting up was, the book reinforces the idea that captivity to fear or responsibility can be just as harmful as physical captivity.
Themes
Titch says he was glad that Wash was with Mr. Wilde as he died. He notes that Erasmus died two years earlier as well, and he was shocked at how little he cared. Wash doesn’t know what to say about Erasmus, whom he thinks was an evil, cruel man. He is only surprised to hear Titch contradict Peter and Solander’s accounts, as they said he was very upset about his brother’s death.
The book again illustrates how sometimes the most painful thing about families is the lack of love between them when they are supposed to be great sources of love, as Titch reveals how little he cared about his brother’s death.
Themes
Titch says that he went a few years earlier to clean up Faith and put its records in London. He notes that Kit was Wash’s mother and that she died naturally, but Wash doesn’t want to talk about this wound with Titch. Wash says that Titch never truly saw him; he only saw what every other white man saw—his surface. Titch says that that is untrue, and asks to show Wash something.
Again, Wash recognizes that families can be complicated and painful. As much as Titch wants to talk to Wash about Big Kit, Wash is deeply hurt by both of their betrayals—Titch abandoning him and Big Kit not being honest with Wash that she was his mother.
Themes
Wash stops Titch, and asks what he saw in Wash the night he was serving dinner—if it was just that he was the right size for the Cloud-cutter. Titch agrees, saying that that’s why he initially chose Wash, but not why he befriended Wash. He says that Wash was a rare thing—and Wash replies that he wasn’t so rare that Titch couldn’t abandon him.
This exchange encapsulates the root of Wash and Titch’s conflict. Titch admits that he initially picked Wash essentially because of his weight—making him no better than an object, which Titch needed to make his own escape from Faith. This is what Wash feared, because for all of Titch’s abolitionist leanings, he still did not think of Wash as an equal, which is particularly harmful to Wash because he considered Titch to be like family.
Themes
Wash says that Titch took in a young Black boy and educated him like an English boy, but not for Wash’s benefit—only to write about it. Titch took Wash on because he was helpful in Titch’s political cause and could aid in his experiments. But beyond that, Wash was of no use to him and so Titch abandoned him. Titch never saw Wash as an equal—he was more concerned about slavery’s moral stain on white men than the danger it wrought on Black men. Wash knows that his words are true, but they also paint a false picture of their relationship.
Wash’s words here demonstrate his and Titch’s complex dynamic. Because Titch did use Wash until he was no longer useful, viewing him only as something to be saved, but this doesn’t fully capture the entirety of their relationship. What makes Wash particularly unhappy is knowing that they were also like family members, and yet Titch abandoned him anyway. It is precisely the loving parts of their relationship which made Titch’s betrayal so painful.
Themes
Wash waits for a response, and Titch only says that he treated Wash as family. Wash thinks that it is strange he once thought of Titch as his whole world, and yet they cannot understand each other. Titch is a man who has done far more than most to end slaves’ suffering—he risked his own comfort, his family, his name, and saved Wash from certain death. But Titch’s problem, Wash thinks, is that he doesn’t understand that he can still cause harm. Titch asks again to show Wash something; seeing the pain in his eyes, Wash goes with him.
Wash’s final thoughts here suggest that just because Titch fought for enslaved people’s rights doesn’t exempt him from all bias, as he still isn’t fully able to see Wash as an equal or deserving of full respect. In addition, Wash shows that Titch’s abandonment hurt so keenly precisely because they viewed each other as family. Titch doesn’t fully realize how his betrayal has caused Wash deep pain precisely because of the familial bonds that they built.
Themes
