William Character Analysis in Washington Black

William an enslaved man on Faith Plantation who commits suicide towards the beginning of the book. Many of the enslaved people on the plantation, including Big Kit, believe that committing suicide would allow them to be reborn in their homelands. Wanting to make an example of William and prevent others from committing suicide, Erasmus saws off the man’s head after his death, arguing that the enslaved people can’t be reborn without a head.

William Quotes in Washington Black

The Washington Black quotes below are all either spoken by William or refer to William. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

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We had lived in blood for years, my entire life. But something about that evening—the gleaming beauty of the master’s house, the refinements, the lazy elegance—made me feel a profound, unsettling sense of despair. It was not only William’s mutilation that day, knowing his head stared out over the fields even now, in the darkness. What I felt at that moment, though I then lacked the language for it, was the raw, violent injustice of it all.

Related Characters: George Washington “Wash” Black (speaker), Big Kit, Erasmus Wilde, William

Page Number and Citation: 26

Explanation and Analysis: