Lee Tae‑min

All of the enslaved characters in the novel have family members who have been sold (while some have been sold themselves), creating permanent separations.

Through imagining a better future for themselves and harnessing the power of the past, the characters of The Water Dancer are able to pursue avenues toward the liberation they desire. All Rights Reserved. While family is an important element within the concept of collectivity or community, the biological family is severely limited in this story, because Quality people routinely split up Tasked families, especially by selling individual members. It debuted at number one on The New York Times fiction best-seller list and was a selection for Oprah's Book Club in 2019. By making Hiram’s ability to remember an actual superpower, Coates suggests that memory is not just personally important for individuals—it has the capacity to change the world. Giorgis: I’m also struck by the clarity and defiance with which the women in the book articulate their needs and push back against Hiram. It is an attempt to restore that history and that memory back to black folks. His mother was sent away from him during his childhood, so he cannot remember her; but in order to activate a particular kind of energy which sets his conduction powers in motion, Hiram must access memories of his mother. One of the tropes of genre fiction is to use women as plot objects of the white man. [And] when I was a kid, I loved sci-fi, loved fantasy, all of that stuff.

The Water Dancer Introduction + Context. The first time I came across the water dance, and this idea of holding the vessel of water on your head and the first person that spills a drop loses—for some reason, that took me back to these old stories of black folks who would leap in the water during the transatlantic slave trade. All these old stories of enslaved black people, us literally coming from the water, like coming across the Atlantic. Coates: Again, I feel like I saw a lot of that in the primary sources, and it’s not something I feel like I saw a lot of in depictions of slavery. The idea of the ocean... How could I write an analysis essay on The Water Dancer? As a national correspondent at The Atlantic, Coates produced journalism, essays, and memoir writing that earned him widespread acclaim and shifted national dialogues. And I remember I would go to these Civil War battlefields, and there would be no black people there. Like, when I started reading the biographies of Harriet Tubman, even in those biographies, she just comes across as such a mystical figure.

They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Giorgis: I was reminded of something that Tayari Jones, who wrote An American Marriage, said about having read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon in college and learning how to write a feminist novel largely from the perspective of a man. Those who imagine themselves to be superior and, therefore, entitled to rule over others call themselves the Quality. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage–and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child–but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Giorgis: Do you see your work, broadly speaking, as a project of remembering? Accepting Lockless as his place, not just that of the Quality owners, is a key element in positioning himself to help others transition from Tasked to Freed.

Selling people’s parents off for profit. You could count on one hand. The Water Dancer makes the case that memory is vitally important, even when the horrors of slavery make it tempting to repress one’s memories. It’s hard to read, but it’s really, really fascinating—it focuses on family separation. I got a book, I think it’s called What Slaves Ate. I read some David Brion Davis, Thavolia Glymph, Barbara Fields. I went to the Whitney Plantation down in Louisiana.

Coates: Yeah, at this moment right now, yes. How does Coates define morality in the novel? The terms are in and of themselves wrong, but being judged on those terms, there’s a level of shame, of feeling emasculated. This is the case with Hiram’s mother The writing is liberating, especially when it’s out in the world. Writing feels like purifying. More broadly, the references to water evoke a deeper connection with the earth, since it is their ancestors’ connection with the water-goddess that enables Harriet and Hiram to use this power. And so it’s very, very important to me that you have some picture of not just what was done to these people but what they did.

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