Washington Black

The ship’s captain, named Benedikt Kinast, is a sailor of German and English background. Benedikt and Titch argue about the damage to their respective vessels but soon come to an agreement. Titch and Wash head to see the ship’s surgeon, Theo, who is Benedikt’s identical twin brother. Theo correctly guesses that Wash and Titch are runaways but is kind and treats Wash’s wound. Titch insists that he is “an engineer” who oversees “the slaves who operate the mechanized tools” on Hope Plantation on Saint Lucia (131).

Titch sleeps, but Wash stays awake through the remainder of the night. When they join Theo for breakfast, he tells them the ship is sailing for Haiti and then Virginia. While Theo is still suspicious of their origins, he doesn’t press further. As Titch and Wash continue to sail with the ship, Wash grows reflective, sketching the ocean and the sailors, and considering the drastically widened horizons of his new world. Wash realizes that Titch had put his own life in danger order to save Wash, and had “risked everything” for him (136).

As they sail, Wash also learns more about the Kinast brothers. They moved from Germany to England as children, when their father was drafted for war. When both parents died of cholera, the doctor who had treated their father adopted the boys. Because the doctor and his wife were childless, they raised and educated the brothers as their own.

Titch and Wash plan to disembark in Virginia and meet up with one of Titch’s scientific acquaintances. One evening, Benedikt speaks with Wash on the deck, telling him that he adopted his entire crew from an orphanage. Benedikt indicates that he knows that Wash is a stolen slave; Benedikt seems kind but “filled with an impossible sadness” (143).

Arriving in bustling Norfolk, Wash and Titch bid farewell to the Kinast brothers, who ask that Wash and Titch not mention the name of the ship they were on. While Titch sets off alone to inquire about his friend, a shop owner mistakes Wash for a runaway slave and beats him. Wash realizes “the terrible bottomless nature of the open world, when one belongs nowhere, and to no one” (146). Titch and Wash hitch a ride to Titch’s friend Edgar Farrow, who is the sexton of a parish and studies decomposing bodies. On the way, Titch shows Wash a flyer promising a thousand pounds for Wash’s capture, dead or alive; “senselessness” and “shock” (149) overcome Wash. Upon arriving at the church, Edgar invites Wash and Titch inside.

Edgar invites Wash and Titch into his home and talks to them about his work and life. While Edgar fetches their bedding for the night, the severed arm Titch and Wash see in a nearby room disturbs them. Edgar is a peculiar character, talking to them about childhood and how it is “a state of terrible vulnerability” that is “unnatural and incompatible with human life” (155). He also speaks to each of them about their respective scars. He guesses that an explosion scarred Wash, while a wire in Titch’s mouth scarred him as a young child.

Titch relates the story of their escape to Edgar, alarming Wash. When Titch tells Edgar of Mr. Wilde’s death, Edgar produces two letters, one from Mr. Wilde and one from Mr. Wilde’s assistant Peter House, both apparently written recently. The letters give Titch hope that Mr. Wilde may still be alive.

In the evening, Wash reflects upon the nature of evil and considers that the bounty hunter Willard will look like “a man, simply” with a “benign, easy face” (162). Wash wakes in the middle of the night to find Titch gone and Edgar hovering nearby with a lantern. Edgar leads Wash outside to an open grave and descends. Afraid but curious, Wash follows him and finds Titch and Edgar in a low tunnel along with two runaway slaves. Titch encourages Wash to head to Canada with the other slaves, but Wash insists on remaining with him.