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Part 1, Chapter 11
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
From a distance, Philip’s body looks whole, but as Titch and Wash approach, they see bits of fabric hanging off nearby branches, Philip’s torn face, the explosion of teeth and bone. Wash remembers Philip’s hand on the gun and his weariness walking through the field, and Wash can’t bring himself to touch Philip. Titch says nothing and also does not touch Philip, simply retrieving the gun.
Both Titch and Wash’s somber treatment of the body also suggests that they have been deeply affected by witnessing this graphic imagery of Philip’s body, and that the images will inevitably haunt them throughout the rest of their lives.
Themes
Wash can’t sleep that night, feeling his heart thumping in his chest. He knows that death by choice is an opening door—a release into another world. But he doesn’t understand why Philip involved him. Philip’s death surely now means Wash’s own, as Esther told Titch and Erasmus that he and Philip went off together. Worried now that Titch is right and that the only thing to come after death is darkness, Wash only hopes for a swift death.
In returning to the metaphor of death as a door, Wash acknowledges that just like himself and Big Kit, Philip felt a kind of captivity from which he believed only death could release him. This suggests that sometimes emotional burdens can feel as confining as physical captivity, and can require as extreme a solution (such as death) to escape.
Themes
That night, Wash hears a noise, and he gets out of bed to find Titch awake in the dark. Wash asks what is happening, and Titch says that they are leaving that night for another island. He tells Wash to take only what is most valuable to him—but to mind the weight of what he brings. Wash is stunned, realizing that they are taking the Cloud-cutter. Titch tells him to hurry, explaining that this is their only option, because Erasmus knows that Wash was with Philip when he died. Titch notes that he’s not doing this only for Wash—that he can’t stay at Faith. Wash is struck by all that Titch is risking for him, and he agrees to go.
In this moment, Wash is touched by the fact that Titch is willing to risk so much in escaping Faith Plantation and the love and protection inherent in this gesture. But as Titch notes, Wash and Titch are both using the Cloud-cutter to find freedom: Wash to attain freedom from literal enslavement, and Titch to escape the responsibilities that he would have to take on if he remained at Faith Plantation.
Themes
Wash flees with Titch in the half moonlight, increasingly afraid that they will be discovered and worried about the incoming storm. But Titch seems steady as they walk up to the mountain’s peak. They urgently get onto the Cloud-cutter—Titch has been inflating it all night—and they check the bolts and knots. Giving Wash a look, he starts a fire from the central canister, and the Cloud-cutter shudders. Titch cuts each rope tethering them to the ground, and the wicker basket lifts from the grass.
Here, the Cloud-cutter represents both literal and metaphorical freedom for Wash and Titch. They are literally able to escape Faith Plantation, but in doing so, they are also both attempting to escape their past traumas and burdens—including Philip’s death, slavery, and family responsibility.
Themes
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The sky howls as they rise, and Wash aches with anguish and wonder, sobbing as he stares out into the boundlessness of the world. All is shadow, red light, and frenzy, and they go up into the eye of the storm, miraculously untouched.
Even though Wash and Titch are using the Cloud-cutter much earlier and in a much different way than intended, the Cloud-cutter is still a means for scientific discovery. It allows them to more fully explore the world, and Wash is even overcome in this moment by the “boundlessness” of the world in the Cloud-cutter’s ascent.
Themes
