57 pages • 1 hour read
Ta-Nehisi CoatesThe Water Dancer
Fiction | Novel | 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.
Essay Topics
How is the United States described in the novel different from the historical United States of the 19th century? What impact do these differences have on the novel?
Compare and contrast the experiences of enslaved women and enslaved men in the novel. What impact, for example, do sexual exploitation, childbearing, and family/community responsibilities have on enslaved women’s chances to gain their freedom?
Hiram evolves over the course of the novel from a boy who wants to be recognized as a Walker to a man who sees himself as responsible to his community and the Underground. Describe the stages of his evolution, including key turning points and motivations for change.
Hiram says at one point, “But we must tell our stories, and not be ensnared by them” (345). What does he mean by this, and how does telling his story instead of being ensnared by it enable him to claim an identity?
Discuss the role of creative acts—storytelling, dancing, and singing—in the novel.
What is Conduction exactly? Why is Hiram not able to use it at first? What does the centrality of memory, storytelling, and feeling tell the reader about Coates’ perspective on the role of each in African-American culture?
Coates uses several important symbols—water, the wooden horse, the shell necklace, the copper coin, the Walker monument—in the novel. Trace the meaning of one of more of these symbols by analyzing the passages in which the symbol or symbols appear.
Compare and contrast Corrine’s vision of Hiram’s role in the Underground and Hiram’s vision of his role. What is the basis of the conflict between the two, and with which vision do you agree?
Read Coates’ “The Case for Reparations,” available on The Atlantic’s website or in revised form in his essay collection We Were Eight Years in Power. What connections do you see between the themes and concepts in the novel and the essay, especially that of white supremacy and slavery as theft and plunder? What point does the ending of the novel—Hiram’s establishment as the house agent at Lockless—make about how African Americans can be made whole after centuries of exploitation?
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