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Part 1, Chapter 7
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 needs one more thing to begin his experiment: workers. He and Wash visit the Great House to ask Erasmus for spare slaves. They wait in the hall a long time, and Titch grows irritable until Gaius comes out to tell him that Erasmus is occupied that afternoon. Titch ignores this and strides into the house with Wash in tow.
Again, even though Titch claims to value the enslaved people, he still has no problem with using their labor when it suits him. This suggests that he recognizes their humanity to a point, but still views them as people who are meant to serve him.
Themes
As Titch and Wash walk deeper into the house, Wash spots Émilie cleaning. At first he doesn’t recognize her, because of her rounded belly pushing against her scullery clothes. Wash is shocked—Émilie is just 11, and he is horrified that the father might be any man on the land, even Erasmus. He is overcome with sadness. Titch asks Émilie where Erasmus is, and she deliberately glances at an open door.
This is yet another aspect of slavery’s dehumanization, as enslaved women—or in Émilie’s case, enslaved girls—are raped and sexually violated. Their captivity means that they have no recourse for this physically and emotionally devastating abuse.
Themes
Titch and Wash walk through the door to find Erasmus pressing a cotton blue shirt. Wash is amazed to see Erasmus engaged in such a low labor. Titch makes a snide comment about how “pressing” Erasmus’s business is before asking to have 15 men for a week or two to help him transport and assemble the Cloud-cutter on Corvus peak. Erasmus says that he can’t spare that many men, even noting that Wash is his property and he is already sparing his labor.
Erasmus’s activity—ironing a shirt—shows another, unexpected side of the man, and it acknowledges that Erasmus doesn’t need to have servants or to abuse others.
Themes
Erasmus agrees to spare 10 men at the end of their workday, but Titch points out that they need time to rest and that it would be dangerous to work in the dark. Titch says that he will accept 9 men, but that they must be spared from all other duties. Erasmus agrees, annoyed at Titch’s persistence.
Titch continues to show his empathy for the enslaved people, recognizing that they are people who need rest just as much as anyone else, in contrast to Erasmus, who ignores their humanity and refuses to provide them with basic human decency.
Themes
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Erasmus brings up another matter: that five nights earlier, he received a letter that their cousin Philip is coming to Kingston. Titch reacts as though a ghost is coming to visit them. Erasmus recalls how morose Philip is, and he hopes that Philip doesn’t kill himself while he is there. Wilde asks for Titch to pick Philip up in Bridge Town when he arrives, and for Titch to lodge him. Titch agrees, and having settled the matters, Erasmus asks to continue with his day uninterrupted.
Philip’s initial description paints a picture of him as morose and even fatally miserable. Though Erasmus likely intends his statement about suicide as a joke, it nevertheless points to Philip’s somber and self-destructive tendencies and foreshadows his eventual death. Moreover, Titch’s reaction—that of seeing a ghost—also hints at some of their history, and that despite Titch’s attempts to distance himself from Philip, their past history is unavoidable.
Themes
The following morning, Erasmus’s nine sickliest slaves show up. Titch gives them a day’s rest and a good meal so they can regain their strength, and the following morning, they begin cutting a trail to the base of the Peak and up the mountain, constructing a rough pulley system for hauling heavy objects. Titch works with them while Wash conducts some of Titch’s ongoing experiments.
Titch again tries to treat the other enslaved people as human rather than simply forcing them to work themselves ragged. But the difference between them and Wash highlights the injustice of the whole system of slavery, and that no kind treatment will end it entirely. Wash was once like those laborers, and the book suggests that white people like Titch need to recognize that the laborers have equal potential as Wash—or Titch—and therefore deserve equal treatment.
Themes
Wash asks one of the men—Black Jim—if Big Kit has any “secret missives” for him. Jim stares back with dark eyes, and Wash realizes that, to Jim, Wash must sound and act like a white man—even more than Gaius or Émilie. He feels pained and rejected.
Titch’s mentorship has given Wash more freedom and opportunity, but he recognizes that his expanded vocabulary has also separated him from his former family like Big Kit, making him feel like he doesn’t belong anywhere.
Themes
The day Philip arrives, Wash feels dread, realizing that another white master in the house will likely change his and Titch’s dynamic. On the way to pick Philip up, Wash asks if Philip is very bad, and Titch assures him that Philip is a decent person, just a very melancholy one.
Wash’s apprehension at Philip’s arrival continues to illustrate how tenuous his new social standing is. Even though he has been educated and has received kinder treatment from Titch, he is still at the mercy of Titch and any other white person who might enter his life.
Themes
As the carriage approaches Bridge Town, Wash looks out the carriage and takes in the city, which he has never visited before. He is amazed to see street musicians, fish markets, and enormous windmills. Wash looks at everything greedily, wanting to hold it in his mind to draw it later.
Art doesn’t just allow Wash to understand the natural world, but it also sparks his curiosity and desire to understand any new thing in his life—including this cityscape, which he has never experienced before.
Themes
When the carriage arrives at the boardwalk, Titch gets out to fetch Philip. When the men return together, Wash observes that Philip is fat, and he looks cautious and skeptical. Wash instructs the porters where to set Philip’s trunks before scrambling into the carriage. Titch introduces Wash as his assistant, and Philip scoffs at Wash’s name. Titch explains that Richard Black named some of the slaves very strangely: Immanuel after Kant, Émilie after Émilie du Châtelet. Hearing Émilie’s name, Wash realizes that he hasn’t seen Émilie in weeks—he wonders where she might have gone, knowing that he would likely never see her again.
Wash isn’t the only enslaved person who shares a famous name, as Immanuel Kant and Émilie du Châtelet were both 16th-century philosophers. These names are ironic and even cruel, as the famous figures would have freedoms and opportunities that the enslaved people would likely never have. And while those names live on in history, the enslaved people’s degradation also means that they would be completely forgotten to history. In fact, Wash even forgets about Émilie after not seeing her for a few weeks, showing how he, too, is starting to look past the other enslaved people.
Themes
Titch and Philip talk some about their family, and Titch notes that Erasmus wasn’t able to pick up Philip because he’s away dealing with business on another plantation. Philip then makes fun of Titch for being more interested in science than in women and beauty. He also tells Titch that his mother sorely misses him.
This is another example complicated family dynamics. Titch’s mother clearly cares about him, while Titch seems completely indifferent to the fact that being away from her is hurting her. In this way, Titch becomes an example of how family members can both be deep sources of love and pain.
Themes
As the carriage rolls through Broad Street, Wash notices several slaves in cages. He knows that these slaves are runaways, and they’ll likely be maimed and returned to their masters, or else killed outright. He thinks that he must look like “a dark apparition of a boy gliding by in his fine service linens” to them. Commenting on the dreary view, Philip wonders how Titch can tolerate Barbados.
Again, Wash starts to recognize how he is becoming an outsider to the world he used to inhabit. He’s not white, so he’s an outsider to Titch’s world—but Wash has also gained an education and stature that ostracizes him from the other enslaved people. This hints at how Wash’s past—both his time as an enslaved person and his education with Titch—will be something that alters him forever.
Themes
Over the next few days, Wash observes Philip, who is often in a somber mood. Philip accompanies Titch and Wash on their collecting expeditions, attempting to hunt with a shotgun. He also eats a lot, sleeps late, and speaks little to Wash beyond soft commands. One day, however, when he sees Wash’s drawings, Philip warns Titch about putting ideas in a slave’s head.
Philip recognizes how Wash’s talent could be dangerous for an enslaved person, because it sparks his curiosity about the outside world and might trigger his thirst for a higher purpose than that of a servant. In this way, Philip’s statement acknowledges that keeping enslaved people ignorant is as much a part of their captivity as their physical restriction.
Themes
Despite Philip’s mildness, Wash is constantly afraid of him. Philip often critiques Wash’s cooking, instructing him to use less salt and ginger, but he never attacks Wash. He often seems startled or disgusted by the slaves in the fields. Over the weeks, Wash’s fear eases, and he even draws sketches of Philip asleep in a chair in the sitting room. These are Wash’s most vivid sketches, infused with a tenderness that he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t show them to anyone and burns them each night.
Like Titch, Philip doesn’t act with the same cruelty as Erasmus, and he treats Wash and the other slaves like human beings. However, also like Titch, this doesn’t mean that he sees Wash as an equal, illustrating how racism sometimes manifests in simply viewing non-white people as inherently lesser than white people.
Themes
