Washington Black

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Symbols & Motifs

Wash’s Nail

Near the beginning of the book, Titch sends for Wash to help him conduct his scientific experiments, and Wash and Big Kit are separated for the first and final time. Fearing that Titch might rape or sexually abuse Wash, Big Kit presses a long nail into Wash’s fist, telling him to stab Titch in the eye with it if necessary. This makeshift weapon is an illicit act, one in which Big Kit and Wash conspire to potentially harm their white master. When Wash brings the nail to his meeting with Titch, Titch immediately notices and takes the nail without comment. At the end of the evening, however, Titch hands the nail back to him, allowing Wash to keep it under his bed for safekeeping.

The nail represents illicit resistance and revolt in the face of oppression and the violence of slavery and sexual assault. Even though Wash and Big Kit know that the nail could be a death sentence for either of them, Big Kit is determined to protect her son, and Wash wants to protect his own life. Nevertheless, the nail is an inadequate weapon in a world where white men can do whatever they please to black children, and possess knives, guns, whips, and a variety of other implements with which to accomplish the task. The nail is significant as an act of resistance, but is unable to protect Wash from anything that might befall him.

The use of the nail is echoed later in the text, when Wash successfully stabs the bounty hunter Willard in the eye with a knife. Now that Wash has grown up and Willard’s power and authority have lessened, Wash is able to defend himself—even with a crude weapon—from a racially charged, potentially fatal attack. The transition from the efficacy of the nail to the efficacy of the knife in performing the same task illustrates the ways that Wash has transformed over the course of the novel.

The Ocean

Throughout the novel, the ocean represents change, mystery, and possibility. Wash glimpses the ocean for the first time when he first summits Corvus Peak, and he is amazed at the new view of the island this vantage point gives him. While he has lived on the island of Barbados for his entire life, he has never seen the ocean, a circumstance that indicates his lack of freedom and his cruel and limited existence on the plantation. When Wash and Titch escape on the Cloud-cutter and land on Benedikt’s ship, Wash again reflects on the power and strangeness of the ocean, and he is amazed at the way the ocean connects him to the entire world, which is so much greater than the limited confines of Faith Plantation.

Wash makes a variety of sea voyages throughout the novel, each one a significant departure from the previous stage of his life. Whether from Barbados to the Arctic, the Arctic to Canada, or Canada to England, Wash grows and changes with each journey across the ocean, which comes to represent the possibility for him to grow and reinvent himself with each passage. As an artist and scientist, Wash is also fascinated with the ocean in and of itself, immersing himself in the study of oceanic patterns and marine life. In this sense, the freedom the ocean grants is metaphorical as well as literal, allowing him the opportunity to pursue his passions and develop his natural talents.

The Octopus

When diving on behalf of Tanna and Mr. Goff, Wash comes across a new specimen of octopus off the Canadian coast. The octopus is intelligent and friendly, and Wash finds himself hesitant to capture and kill her just for the sake of scientific progress. It is after discovering the octopus and bringing her to the surface that Wash develops the idea for Ocean House, a place that displays sea creatures without killing them first. With his unique perspective as a black man and former slave, Wash is sensitive to the idea of harming or capturing other living creatures. However, he does capture the octopus and bring her to England to live in Ocean House, pointing toward his ambivalence about how best to treat other nonhuman animals. The octopus reflects the tension between science and freedom, between progress and captivity. When Wash experiences emotional turmoil over Titch in England, the octopus grows sick, becoming a physical manifestation of Wash’s internal struggles.

The Cloud-Cutter

Designed by Titch and assembled by the slaves of Faith Plantation, the Cloud-cutter is a paradox, characterized by both the promise of freedom and the reality of captivity. Wash and Titch successfully use the Cloud-cutter to escape Barbados, but the contraption soon falters, falls, and is lost at sea. Titch has high dreams for the success of his flying machine, risking his own and Wash’s life in the process. In some ways, the Cloud-cutter comes to represent scientific accomplishment, built on the backs of slave labor and unable to achieve its true purpose.

At the same time, the Cloud-cutter is pivotal in ensuring Wash’s freedom and changing the trajectory of his life. Soaring above the island and out to open water, Wash can rise above the circumstances of his birth and enslavement and achieve a new life. At the end of the novel, Wash realizes that Titch has built a new version of the Cloud-cutter and plans to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in it. While Wash recognizes this as a foolish fantasy, he cannot help but sympathize with Titch’s misguided dream of flying.