Washington Black

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Part 2, Chapters 5-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Adrift, 1832”

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary

Titch and Wash head back to Norfolk. While Wash understands Titch’s reasoning, Wash nevertheless feels “anger” and “betrayal” because he thinks that Titch tried to get rid of him (168). They seek passage on a new ship with a strict captain named Michael Holloway and a friendly second named Jacob Ibel. As the ship takes off, Wash thinks he catches a glimpse of the bounty hunter and imagines him to be “cruel, hawkish, without mercy” (170).

While they are out at sea, Titch asks Michael and Jacob why they’re setting out so early for the north. They confess to him that they are seeking the wreck of a whaler to find and take the oil buried on a nearby island. They sail north into colder waters, disembarking in the bay. Titch looks for someone who will guide him to Mr. Wilde’s last known camp, and they find an old, deaf man who Titch recognizes as Mr. Wilde’s assistant, Peter House. Titch realizes that Mr. Wilde is alive, and together they take a sled to the camp “into the great, echoing domes of snow” (178).

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary

Titch, Wash, Peter, and a local guide take a sled through the Arctic wilderness toward the camp. Wash wonders at the strangeness of the landscape and his journey from Faith Plantation. They arrive at a camp full of igloos, and Titch reunites with Mr. Wilde, who is still alive and does not know how the rumor of his death has spread. Wash describes Mr. Wilde as “short, fat, and under his scraggly whiskers […] very much alive and quite brutally ugly” (182).

Wash realizes that Mr. Wilde and his assistant Peter have an intimate relationship, and they are “affectionate and even tender” with one another (183). Titch tells Mr. Wilde of their flight in the Cloud-cutter from Barbados, but Mr. Wilde is unimpressed and disinterested. Both father and son have trouble communicating with one another, often rubbing each other the wrong way. Wash observes that Mr. Wilde is “a man with a broken apparatus in place of a heart” (189). As Wash listens, they talk about family and shared history.

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

Titch and Wash spend the following days in Mr. Wilde’s camp. Mr. Wilde sees Wash drawing and is equal parts impressed and disturbed by Wash’s natural talent, “as if he were watching some insensible creature perform an unnatural act” (193). Titch still hasn’t told Mr. Wilde about Philip’s death and their subsequent flight. Wash has a dream that Big Kit visits him, telling him to be her eyes. He feels calm and peaceful during the dream, but wakes crying, thinking that Big Kit may have died.

Titch finally tells Mr. Wilde about their escape, but Mr. Wilde is again unmoved. Viewing his false death as advantageous for his own plans and research, Mr. Wilde makes no move to help Titch and Wash escape their predicament. Titch prepares to leave the camp and Wash objects, insisting that he accompany his master. Titch tells Wash that he is free, and that Peter will take care of Wash. Leaving Wash behind, Titch “walked calmly out of his life, and was lost” (199).

Part 2, Chapters 5-7 Analysis

Titch and Wash continue their uneasy relationship after Titch’s initial urging for Wash to leave via the Underground Railroad. While Wash is devoted to Titch, Titch is increasingly frustrated by Wash’s dependence. Titch is overjoyed that Mr. Wilde is alive, but Titch is frustrated in Mr. Wilde’s lack of affection or approval.

Peter and Mr. Wilde model a different way of living, alone in an Arctic outpost in a remote region of the world. The novel also indicates that Peter and Mr. Wilde are in an intimate relationship, complicating the reader’s understanding of an upstanding scientific man such as Mr. Wilde. While Mr. Wilde is not afraid to buck convention when it comes to his work or his love life, he is tragically unable to express himself in other areas of his life, including in his relationships with his other family members. In addition, Mr. Wilde is trapped in an outmoded, racially charged view of the world, and he views Wash’s innate intelligence, curiosity, and artistic skill as a strange aberration rather than as a normal part of human existence.

Titch’s decision to abandon both Wash and Mr. Wilde serves as a foundational experience in Wash’s life. Wash struggles with the realization that Wash is much less important to Titch than Titch is to Wash. These chapters illustrate the messy and complicated nature of human relationships, especially when complicated by race, sexuality, and privilege.