Previous
Quality
“The Task” refers to the institution of slavery as well as specific units of slave labor. Accordingly, enslaved people are categorized as “the Tasked.”
Tasked Quotes in The Water Dancer
The The Water Dancer quotes below are all either spoken by Tasked or refer to Tasked. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
At every gathering there was this dispute about my mother’s mother, Santi Bess, and her fate. The myth held that she had executed the largest escape of tasking folk—forty-eight souls—ever recorded in the annals of Elm County. And it was not simply that they had escaped but where they’d been said to escape to—Africa. It was said that Santi had simply led them down to the river Goose, walked in, and reemerged on the other side of the sea.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14
Quotes
The Task was a trap. Even Georgie was trapped. And so who was Corrine Quinn to judge such a man? Who was I, who’d run with no higher purpose save my own passions and my own skin? Now I understood the Underground war. It was not the ancient and honorable kind.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24
Quotes
“We can’t ever have nothing pure,” Robert said. “It’s always out of sorts. Them stories with their knights and maidens, none of that for us. We don’t get it pure. We don’t get nothing clean.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But neither do they. It is quite a thing, a messy dirty thing, to put your own son, your own daughter, to the Task. Way I see it, ain’t no pure and it is we who are blessed, for we know this.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Water Dancer LitChart as a printable PDF.
Tasked Term Timeline in The Water Dancer
The timeline below shows where the term Tasked appears in The Water Dancer. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...a sense of peace, knowing that there really is a world that lies beyond “the Task.” However, he is then brought back to the mortal world by Maynard’s screams. Maynard disappears,...
(full context)
Chapter 2
...the cabin he used to share with Rose and waits on the steps until the Task begins for the day. He is now 11 and rather small, but still has to...
(full context)
...young, he is only just beginning to understand the distinction between the Quality and the Tasked, and dreams about the life of “splendor and regale” that the Quality lead.
(full context)
Chapter 3
...chained to Maynard, who is only a baby and doesn’t notice the presence of the Tasked. Everyone disappears but Hiram and Maynard, then Maynard and the field dissolve too, and the...
(full context)
Chapter 4
Sophia is a young woman who does not seem to task, though this is because she “belong[s]” to Nathaniel Walker, Howell’s brother. Every weekend Hiram drives...
(full context)
...the hands of the Quality just so they can in turn oppress and degrade the Tasked. Hiram, meanwhile, goes to join the black people, some of whom are enslaved and some...
(full context)
...thinks that although she doesn’t love him now, she might “in a world beyond the Task.” Given the state of Virginia, it would no longer be possible for Hiram to buy...
(full context)
Chapter 6
...black people who remember him from childhood and who knew Rose. On Christmas Day, the Tasked divide themselves so that half work on preparing a feast for the white people, and...
(full context)
Chapter 11
...assigned to work for Maynard. Maynard asked Hiram to gather together a large group of Tasked; he then told them that they were due to race each other for Maynard’s entertainment....
(full context)
Chapter 14
...many others before him. She wants to frame him for betrayal—not a betrayal of the Tasked, but of his Taskmasters. As punishment, he will be killed or re-enslaved, his family brutally...
(full context)
Chapter 15
...not have a separate car for black people. This is because “The Quality [keep] their Tasked ones close the way a lady keeps her clutch, closer even.” The journey takes two...
(full context)
Chapter 24
...sees two low whites going out for a hunt, and a mix of Quality and Tasked children playing together. Once night falls, he goes back to greet Harriet, who apologizes for...
(full context)
Chapter 27
...highly reluctant, but Hiram insists, and Corrine eventually agrees. The next day, Hiram dons his tasking clothes while Corrine dresses in her mourning outfit. They drive through the town and past...
(full context)
