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Part 4, Chapter 16
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
Later, Wash and Titch sit on the floor in the dark, drinking tea. Wash asks how far they are from Dahomey, but Titch says it is far away, and it would be a dangerous journey. Titch asks if Wash remembers Edgar Farrow, explaining that the man is dead. Titch comments that he was a great man, in all that he did for people. Wash thinks that he was kind, despite his dark hobby.
Wash’s interest in Dahomey is another extension of his desire to fully understand his past, as he can’t seem to find belonging in any of the places to which he travels. But when Titch says that it is a dangerous journey, and Wash doesn’t pursue the idea, he seems to understand that that journey would simply be another futile attempt to confront the past.
Themes
Wash tells Titch about Ocean House, and Wash knows as he describes it that he will fight to get credit for the work he has done when he returns to England. Titch is noticeably interested and says that it sounds astonishing. Titch says again that he always felt Wash was family, and he tried to be kind—he never thought he mistreated Wash.
Wash’s resolution to gain some credit for Ocean House perhaps indicates that Wash is finally moving on from his fixation on the past, even if he knows that the past left a permanent mark on him. Whereas earlier, Wash felt like his work didn’t truly bring him meaning because he didn’t understand his past, now he recognizes how he can find belonging and pride in his work at Ocean House.
Themes
After some silence, Wash says that John Willard died and Wash attended the hanging. He says that he thought he saw Titch in the crowd, and Titch comments that it was perhaps his spirit. They briefly discuss Peter Haas and Robert Solander, and Titch explains their comments about how he looked: when he went to England, he had his luggage sent to Amsterdam, and so he only had old, ill-fitting clothes in England.
Solving the mystery of Titch’s clothes—that they were older, and therefore too small—is also symbolic. It suggests that people who remain stuck on the past, such as both Titch and Wash, will always be ill at ease with themselves, never truly fitting in their own skin. They are trying to recreate a previous version of their life despite having grown in a way that makes the past unrepeatable, suggesting that trying to relive the past is futile.
Themes
Titch also returns to what happened in the Arctic. He says that in that moment, when he walked into that storm, he didn’t feel like himself. He tries to explain that when he was younger, he, Erasmus, and Philip played together, but Erasmus and Titch always teased Philip—doing things like locking him in rooms or making him strip on a hike and walk home naked. Eventually they started beating him—Erasmus especially—and only stopped when Philip lost consciousness. He thinks that Erasmus’s cruelty started with Philip.
Although Titch isn’t fully able to connect the dots between his escape in the Arctic to his childhood bullying, it is clear that what he and Erasmus did to Philip still weighs heavily on him, and is one of the reasons that he wanted to travel away from the Arctic. This suggests that Titch, too, has been journeying in an effort to reconcile with his past mistakes.
Themes
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Meanwhile, Titch never understood Philip. After he died, they learned many surprises about Philip—every month, he donated half his income to a ladies’ society to establish a home for orphaned children. Meanwhile, he owed significant gambling debts, and he socialized but never had friends. Titch says he doesn’t feel like he truly knew Philip.
Titch’s revelations about Philip perhaps hint at some of the expectations Philip alluded to on the night he committed suicide—that despite his freedom, he felt confined by his melancholy and spent much of his life trying to make up for the trauma that he experienced at Titch and Erasmus’s hands. This again shows how mental captivity—like Philip’s relentless sadness—can be just as damaging as physical captivity.
Themes
Titch again comments how awful they were to Philip—one night, when Philip’s father lay dying, Erasmus and Titch asked Philip to come out with them, because he had not left the man’s bedside for weeks. He returned to his home drunk only to learn his father died while he was away. Titch goes on, saying that when he retrieved Philip’s body from the field when he died, he realized that there must be more in the universe than just the physical properties of the world.
Here, Titch again emphasizes how he and Erasmus, despite the familial bond between them and Philip, caused Philip an immense amount of pain. He implies that his journey to Morocco—where he is exploring the world beyond its physical properties through his shadow grams—is an effort to make peace with his past failures and perhaps because he contributed to Philip’s suicide.
Themes
Wash thinks about his years running after Philip’s death, and about his existence before Titch’s arrival. And it seems to him that slaves’ lives never belonged to themselves, even when they tried to reclaim them by committing suicide.
As Titch thinks about Philip’s suicide, Wash recognizes how Philip still had freedom where the slaves did not—they had no self-determination, especially when Erasmus deprived them of the ability to kill themselves. And the fact that Wash was still so restricted even after escaping—having to stay with Wash and constantly afraid of Willard—shows how so much of his life has been determined by captivity.
Themes
Titch asks if Wash is disgusted with what he did, and Wash says to Titch that it’s hard to know the truth of any life, or of any other person’s suffering. Titch counters that you can at least try not to worsen it. Wash then gets up and puts a hand on Titch’s shoulder.
This moment represents a small reconciliation for Wash and Titch. Because even though Titch has hurt Wash deeply, Wash shows that he still cares about Titch like a family member. He seeks to comfort Titch even when there is a great deal of pain between them, reinforcing how families do involve both love and pain.
Themes
Titch and Wash sit like this for some moments until Wash takes his hand away, and Titch lies down in the corner. Titch falls asleep quickly while Wash listens to the rising wind, hearing sand click against the window panes. He is amazed to realize that Titch’s guilt has nothing to do with Wash. Titch’s wounds have rendered Titch a child, trying to recreate the years at Faith. Wash observes that Titch isn’t making a home here, and that soon the young boy will be abandoned in some foreign place, just like Wash was.
Wash recognizes how much Titch has been haunted by his past. Like Wash, Titch has been unable to truly make a home for himself, and will someday abandon the boy in the same way that he abandoned Wash. Despite his attempts to make a new life in Morocco, Wash recognizes that this journey has simply led Titch to repeat his past.
Themes
Wash thinks he hears Tanna rising, but she never comes to the front room. At the window, Wash sees the dark sky completely empty, and unthinkingly, Wash goes out into the sandstorm. The wind is furious, tree branches whipping past the stone house. There is no trace of any human presence, and it is so cold that he expects to see his breath. The sand stings his eyes, and behind him, he hears Tanna call his name, but he can’t take his gaze from the horizon, tinged orange from the sun about to rise. He takes a few steps forward, gripping himself and feeling the wind across his forehead.
In this final passage, Wash’s journey into the sandstorm mirrors the moment when Titch walked out into the snowstorm in the Arctic. Tanna even calls after Wash, just as Wash called after Titch in the earlier incident. The ending is ambiguous: while the rising sun is a symbol of hope, Wash’s motion towards the horizon suggests that he is still pursuing something unachievable—a horizon that he can never actually reach. In this way, the ending also suggests that both Wash and Titch may continue to be restless and unable to fully reconcile with the past, doomed to spend their lives avoiding it or repeating it.
Themes
