55 pages • 1 hour read
Eleanor ShearerRiver Sing Me Home
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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BetaThemes
The Connection Between All Things
This theme begins as a description of Mama B’s philosophy and comes full circle as a method for viewing the past, present, and future as states in conversation with one another. This mirrors the links that the novel paints between members of the Caribbean population who are oppressed due to colonialism. While slavery and colonialism have forced different characters to live in proximity to one another, Eleanor Shearer examines sites of intercultural production by portraying the liberation village in Part 2, which includes not only self-liberated Black people but also captives and Indigenous people. Through this theme, Shearer illuminates the interconnections that build Caribbean identity.
Through Mama B, Shearer establishes this theme as something that Rachel must realize for herself. Rachel refers to this theme whenever she is reminded of Mama B; for example, “Rachel was reminded of Mama B, in the northern forest of Barbados, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Thomas Augustus and the other runaways were truly living by Mama B’s philosophy” (206). Though connected to nature, Rachel’s ability to see connections between herself and other people, places, and things shifts the boundaries of the theme, which deconstructs colonialist senses of hierarchy or human sovereignty over nature in its emphasis on connection.
An example of this can be found in Chapter 23 when Rachel, Nobody, Mary Grace, and Nuno travel the Demerara River. Rachel, after contemplating the stories that Nobody told of daring adventurers searching for a city made of gold, criticizes the anthropocentric worldview of colonial settlers and enslavers: “To discount all the other life around her, to discount even the gently flowing water and the fertile earth itself as companions in her journey? That struck her as the height of arrogance” (192). Within this criticism is a distinction in how Rachel sees herself and how colonial settlers and enslavers see themselves. Rachel sees herself as part of the natural world, connected to it through coexistence, whereas the men in Nobody’s stories are above the world via their domination of it.
Rachel’s attachment to the natural forces like the river is inseparable from her attachment to people. Furthermore, by being a grandmother at the end of the novel, one who feels deeply all the connections she has made, Shearer implies that Rachel will pass down Mama B’s philosophy to her grandson, thus allowing it to continue. This theme shows how empathy, love, and understanding create new ways of relating to the world and the people within it. The novel suggests that no one is truly alone or isolated.
The Power of Memory
Shearer uses memory to explore the ambiguous spaces between the past, present, and future. Memory fills in the gaps that slavery and colonialism created through providing avenues for resistance. For example, when Mercy names her son after Micah, this act represents the reclaiming of one’s right to be free. The act also shows a way for Micah’s legacy as a fighter for freedom to live on.
Yet, Shearer also shows the negative impact of memory, which is trauma. As a formerly enslaved woman, Rachel is impacted by the trauma instilled during her childhood. The way Rachel maneuvers within certain spaces because of trauma illustrates this. For example, when Rachel acquires the beggar’s blanket, she uses it as tool to protect herself from the gaze of those who could harm her, although she cannot say for sure if the people around her intend to: “Now, [Rachel] pulled [the blanket] back around her—the streets were filling with people and there could be danger waiting for her around any corner” (57). Furthermore, Rachel, being used to submitting herself to the whims of enslavers, draws herself in to make herself “smaller than she was” (123). Mama B and Mary Grace have to remind Rachel to stand straight—to not let her past trauma define who she is.
In addition to reminding Rachel of slavery’s hold on her, memory can also make the present more emotionally painful. Rachel frequently returns to memories of her stolen children when they were younger. These revisitations to the past give not just narrative access to context on Rachel’s children but also highlight the emotional toll of reunion. Thomas Augustus is a prime example of how the contrast between the past and present can sour a long-awaited reunification. In Chapter 10, Rachel shares memories of her children with Elvira Armstrong, explaining their character traits when they were young children. Thomas Augustus is characterized as inquisitive and a lover of stories involving Micah (110). As Thomas Augustus is the child who stayed with Rachel the longest, Rachel has certain expectations about her son. When she reunites with him, these expectations are half-fulfilled. Slavery has stolen Thomas’s innocence by making him afraid to hope or to ask questions that could potentially lead to hope. Thomas, in his mother’s eyes, “had become a man with only one answer” (210). In having these expectations of her son due to memories of their bond, Rachel struggles to know the young man Thomas has become.
However, it is the new memories they make together that help her move past the crisis. Rachel knows that her son loves her dearly. By knowing that he loves her and that he cannot forget her, Rachel creates stronger and fresher associations. She is not forgetting the past as Thomas hopes she should. Instead, Rachel is honoring the past by finding new ways of living in the present.
Within these explorations of memory, Shearer creates a neutral view of memory. The novel suggests that memories need not be completely painful or completely happy to be useful. Memories are presented as tools that, if used effectively, can build stronger connections in the here and now.
The Quest for Freedom
Shearer also uses this theme to explore temporal ambiguities. However, there is an existential undercurrent to this theme that grants its distinction. The existential qualities to this theme arise in Part 1 as soon as Rachel escapes Providence Plantation. Rachel wonders if her confusion and fear is part of her journey to freedom. As she runs, this question morphs from defining freedom to figuring out what it entails: “What now?” (8). By asking these questions, Rachel is marking her journey as one about the self. The novel hence establishes that the quest for freedom is not just an external effort but an internal one.
For some characters, freedom means returning to the land of ancestral origins as implied in the conversation that Rachel overhears while at the pier in Bridgetown. The narrator describes the reaction of a man when he learns that there is no ship heading to Africa: “The first man sighed but stayed in line. So, no Africa for him—just another island and another life spent tilling someone else’s land” (57). This reaction suggests that the man intends to reconnect with his ancestral heritage by living in the same continent as his ancestors before slavery. By returning to the “root” (151), those who share the man’s idea of freedom can thrive.
Meanwhile, others, like Thomas Augustus, envision freedom as a literal refuge from past traumas. For those who agree with Thomas, the answer to what they should do next is simple: Ignore the question entirely. In ignoring the past, true freedom—from loss, trauma, and hope—can be achieved for some characters. Then there is Cherry Jane, who shows that freedom means reinvention and social inclusion (however precarious). For Cherry Jane and others who choose to pass, freedom means assimilation and the erasure of difference entirety.
However, for Rachel, freedom is hope. When Rachel says to Thomas that “the search, that is the freedom” (231), Shearer indicates that Rachel has discovered the answers to her questions in Chapter 1. In the process of this discovery, Rachel has learned not only what freedom means to her but also that there are different kinds of freedom. She may not agree with all the types of freedom she learns (as illustrated by her dismay at the kind Cherry Jane chooses), but she accepts them as valid paths to fulfillment.
Shearer’s portrayal of the quest for freedom involves both internal and external exploration, bringing to light both the injustices that led to certain paths and the triumphs of finding a way to survive.
