46 pages • 1 hour read
Rivers SolomonThe Deep
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Deep
The deep is at once a tragic and hopeful symbol. It represents the buried histories, secrets, and tragedies created by the violence of the transatlantic slave trade and the vibrant life that has survived such brutal conditions. The ocean itself was often featured in 18th- and 19th-century art and literature about the transatlantic slave trade for its destructive and life-giving capacities. It was the sight of blasphemous “burials” of enslaved people who were discarded by enslavers on their journey through the Middle Passage. The ocean has been an especially significant symbol for the culture of the African diaspora.
Zoti initially brings the zoti aleyu down toward the ocean floor because it better protects the “strange fish” from the various threats posed by two-legs and other oceanic predators. In this dark and distant place, she is able to imagine and create the architecture of a new society that is grounded in new principles. She buries the secret of their origin, holding it within the figure of the historian, and creates an almost utopian society that takes in all the ocean’s castaways, all those that have been discarded by the two-legs and abandoned by the surface dwellers. The zoti aleyu are unified by their shared history and their determination to create a better world for each other.
At the novella’s end, this is realized more potently as Yetu and the wajinru finally find a way to balance the pain of the past and the peace of the present. By reuniting the orphaned and displaced two-legs with the wajinru, Yetu finally creates the utopic vision that Zoti had imagined. Solomon suggests this in the creation of Oori as a new creature. Rather than the pups who are borne in the deaths of enslaved women, Oori is reborn as a “new thing”: “She did not transform in the way wajinru pups transformed in the two-legs’ bellies. She didn’t grow gills or fins, but like Yetu, she could breathe both on land and in the sea. She was a completely new thing” (239). The deep becomes a haven that contains both the tragedy of the past and the regenerative possibility that emerges out of that pain.
The Remembrance
The Remembrance as a ritualistic ceremony is a symbol of collective memory. Through this representation of the History and the distribution of historical knowledge, Solomon illustrates the ways that remembering is an embodied rather than purely intellectual experience and can unite people around a shared cultural identity and sense of purpose.
In the real world, there are many ways to share historical knowledge—whether through official institutions like schools, written works like textbooks, or artistic creations. One of the most potent sources of historical knowledge for people of the African diaspora has historically been through oral history or folk stories, as the official institutions for producing this information were closed off to the voices of the enslaved. These more “informal” ways of sharing information have proven significant for keeping traditions alive and creating a sense of cultural community across generations.
Solomon adds a mythical dimension to this kind of sacred storytelling practice through the Remembrance. Yetu, their spiritual guide, instructs the wajinru in very intentional ways, creating a context and mood for their engagement with history. For her, the History is absorbed as slivers and pieces that she had to put together and make sense of. When she shares this information, however, she strategically arranges it to produce an educational effect for her people: “In general, Yetu didn’t tell the Remembrance. She made her people experience it as it happened in the minds of various wajinru who lived it” (48). Yetu decides that this embodied experience is what most nourishes the wajinru, who long to be connected to a history and context. She explains that the processing of remembering is merely recalling what they already know—the memories that shape their instincts—though they’ve been buried through attempts to forget.
When Yetu returns from her hero’s journey, however, her beliefs about the Remembrance have changed, as have her people’s. She decides that the embodied knowledge of the rememberings is not merely an experience of pain and suffering that they all must share but one of collective strength: “Yetu showed them a picture of the day with the sharks, how lost she’d been, bleeding, seconds away from death before her amaba scooped her up and dragged her to safety. ‘We must save one another,’ said Yetu” (229). Through this creation of the Remembrance as a solemn ceremony and embodied experience of historical connection, Solomon theorizes a relationship between the African diasporic people that emerges not just from generational trauma but from their urge to protect and care for each other.
The Womb
The womb is an image that recurs in The Deep as a symbol of the origin of life and the creative power of feminized forms of production and reproduction. In this way, the novella participates in a tradition of feminist theory and literature that centers historically disempowered forms of storytelling and creating knowledge. Unlike conventional histories of the Atlantic slave trade that have tended to prioritize the agency of enslaved men, Solomon’s novella uses the symbol of the womb to suggest the long-term and underestimated power of enslaved women to save and unite the people of the African diaspora.
The image of the womb is first used to represent the structure that the wajinru construct to protect themselves from outsiders during the trance-like experience of the Remembrance: “[T]hey built a giant mud sphere in defense, its walls thick and impenetrable. They called it the womb, and it protected the ocean as much as it protected them” (35-36). Calling this structure a womb connects it with the gestational process of creating life and giving birth. It suggests that the Remembrance is an annual ceremony from which the wajinru are “reborn” as a knowing and more united people.
At the novella’s end, the womb takes on a different significance, linking the wajinru to both their past origins and newer possible futures. Once the rememberings are distributed among the wajinru, Yetu gains insight into the memories that she did not observe before. Her amaba, for example, recalls a song that she heard her own mother sing when she was in the womb. This image inspires Yetu and helps her imagine a new, generative link between the wajinru and the two-legs.
When Yetu finds Oori, then, she invites her to stay with her, even though she is not biologically equipped to survive underwater. Yetu feels confident that the ocean will accommodate this transformation, explaining: “Yetu didn’t believe that the sea was sentient. But it was where life began. […] They held each other close until Yetu was able to transfer to Oori the remembering of the womb” (238-39). Returning to the origin of life, the ocean, and the womb, Yetu and Oori are able to give birth to a new beginning and new species, finally closing the distance between the two-legs and their aquatic ancestors.
