55 pages • 1 hour read
Bonnie Jo CampbellThe Waters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 0-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 0, Prologue Summary: “The Town Has a Troubled Soul”
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to misogyny, sexual assault, rape, and gun violence.
In an unincorporated area of southwest Michigan called Whiteheart, a woman named Hermine “Herself” Zook lives in Rose Cottage on Massasauga Island. The island and the surrounding swamp is collectively known as “The Waters.” Hermine, a known healer who treats ailments with natural remedies, has three daughters. Primrose, the oldest, moves to California and works as an attorney. The middle daughter, Maryrose—called Molly—becomes a nurse. The youngest, Rose Thorn, is deemed lazy. For 15 years, Hermine remains married to a man called Wild Will. He constructs the bridge that connects the island to the mainland: a small area known as Boneset. When Wild Will engages in sex with 17-year-old Primrose, Hermine ousts him.
Gradually, Hermine’s remedies become harsher, and eventually, she no longer allows anyone into Rose Cottage. Instead, she meets people on the other side of the bridge at Boneset Table, where she sells vegetables and leaves a basket with a blanket for anyone to drop off an unwanted baby. Long after her house is boarded up, people still speak of Hermine.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Rose Thorn Always Comes Home”
The story begins 14 years previously when Hermine/Herself is still living on the island. Rose Thorn is staying in California with Primrose, and Molly is training to become a nurse practitioner in Lansing, Michigan.
After church, several men drink beer outside the tavern known as the Muck Rattler. The power is out due to a spring storm that came through the night before. The men debate the instructions of the minister, Reverend Roy, who has insisted that no one use Hermine’s remedies. Instead, they must suffer, as is God’s will. Many of the men swear by the effectiveness of Hermine’s remedies, while others blame the poor farming yield on a curse that Hermine must have implemented. Some propose that Reverend Roy’s mandate stems from the fact that he misses Molly Zook, whom he dated for two years. The men discuss a man named Titus Clay and wonder if he has begun to plant his fields. Titus is always the first farmer to begin planting and often plants too early. Titus has hemophilia, which Hermine refers to as “thinblood.”
A person walks toward the men, and after much debate, they realize it is Rose Thorn. She has returned from California and is carrying something awkwardly in a backpack. They wonder if Titus knows of her return, as the two were a couple before Rose Thorn left. However, a man named Whitby silently recalls seeing Titus Senior attack and rape Rose Thorn one night when she went to the man’s home in search of Titus Junior. She left town the next day. (Titus Junior had proposed marriage to Rose Thorn, but she refused.)
Now, the men call Rose Thorn, eager for her to accept an offer of a coke or a ride, but she refuses them all.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Titus Clay Will Always Love Rose Thorn”
Titus Junior arrives at the Muck Rattler tavern, carrying a puppy in one hand and a beer in the other, and joins the group. He is overjoyed to learn that Rose Thorn has returned, and she drinks his beer, but Smiley, the tavern owner, chastises her because she is underage. Titus notices blood running down her leg and sneaks a handkerchief to her, which she secretly stuffs into her underwear. Although all the men want her to stay, Rose Thorn climbs into Titus’s truck.
During the drive, Titus tells Rose Thorn that she can keep the puppy; Rose Thorn names her “Ozma” after a character in the L. Frank Baum stories. She holds the backpack carefully on her lap. When the puppy grows curious about its contents, Rose Thorn lets Ozma peek inside. Titus tries to convince Rose Thorn to come to his farm, but she wants to go to Rose Cottage.
When Titus hears sounds coming from the backpack, Rose Thorn reveals a newborn baby. She gave birth after five hours of labor, then left the hospital, still bleeding. Her milk has not fully come in, and the baby is quiet and listless. Titus is angry. He demands to know the identity of the baby’s father, but Rose Thorn refuses to tell. They arrive at Rose Cottage. Titus shows Rose Thorn his new tattoo. Its design is identical to the one that Wild Will has. Rose Thorn is angry about Titus’s foolishness; she knows that he could have died due to his hemophilia. They part in anger.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Herself Knows How to Raise a Girl”
As climate changes take hold, the plants in Hermine’s remedies have sometimes lost their effectiveness. Each person she heals impacts her, and as she begins to lose her hearing, Hermine is certain that her hearing loss is a defense against having to listen to the hardships of the people she treats. At times, she regrets healing Wild Will of snakebite because her grandmother, Baba Rose, only healed women.
Hermine takes the baby from Rose Thorn, telling her that Titus is a good man. Rose Thorn admits that she loves him but does not want to marry him. Hermine has been treating Titus’s hemophilia, but she refuses to treat Titus Senior for the same condition. Rose Thorn insists that Titus Junior is not the baby’s father, and she reveals that Titus Senior raped her. At the time of the rape, Hermine had a dream that violence was coming to Rose Thorn, but Rose Thorn refused to admit to this at the time. Rose Thorn notes that she sent Prim to Hermine to obtain the remedy to terminate the pregnancy, but Hermine refused to give it to her, not understanding who was requesting it. Rose Thorn demands that Titus Junior be kept in ignorance of the rape. Hermine understands that this information could harm Rose Thorn if it were to become public knowledge.
Hermine thinks of Baba Rose, who also raised foundlings. Hermine has also placed a basket at Boneset Table for such purposes; this was how both Primrose and Rose Thorn made their way to Hermine. Rose Thorn thinks about her time in California. She managed to graduate high school, even though she was unsure of what to do about the baby. Now, she tells Hermine about fleeing the hospital with only Titus’s long shirt to wear as a dress. She decides to name the baby “Dorothy” and wonders if the girl will also have the healing gift. Because Rose Thorn is not producing any milk, Hermine tries to give the baby cow’s milk, but the infant refuses. Baby Dorothy will only drink donkey milk, and so Hermine forces an abortion in her donkey, Aster, to ensure that she will have a ready supply of milk for the baby. In this way, Dorothy gains the nickname “Donkey.”
Chapter 4 Summary: “A Child Will Make of Her World an Education”
Donkey awakens on a spring morning. She is now 11 years old. Hermine is asleep; Donkey has made a habit of climbing into bed with her after Hermine stops dreaming each night. Rose Thorn is in California, and Donkey is eager for her return. Donkey does not attend school; she is educated by Molly three days a week, and Prim has been sending her books on mathematics. A man in camouflage has been spying on the island from Boneset (just across the bridge), and Donkey longs to see him again because there are no men in her life.
She sits outside, reading a math book on logic, then spots a Massasauga rattlesnake—the same type of snake whose bite killed Baba Rose. Suddenly, Hermine appears and catches the snake to use its venom in her medicines. Donkey follows her into the house and protests her killing of animals. As Hermine prepares to extract the venom, Donkey continues to protest until Hermine orders her to go outside. At a little spring, Donkey catches a crayfish that is struggling to leave its shell. The crayfish bites Donkey. That night after dinner, Donkey discovers that Hermine has not killed the snake; it is still trapped inside the bucket that Hermine used to capture it.
Chapter 5 Summary: “A Girl Has to Make Her Own Mistakes”
That night, Donkey does not sleep in Hermine’s bed. Instead, she visits the snake. Intending to allow it to get some fresh air, Donkey pries the lid off the bucket. The snake escapes and slithers underneath the refrigerator. In the dark, Donkey does not know where the snake has gone, even though she searches with a flashlight.
In the morning, Donkey does the chores while Hermine sleeps. Donkey typically awakens Hermine every morning, but this time, she decides to let her sleep. Hermine sleeps all day and throughout the following night. The next morning, Donkey discovers the snake underneath Hermine’s bed. She crawls under the bed but gets stuck where the bed sags beneath the weight of Hermine’s body. Donkey attempts to stab the snake with a pencil, but the snake bites at the sleeve of Donkey’s jacket. She stabs at the snake again and it thrashes about. When Donkey sees blood on her arm, she believes that the snake has bitten her but soon realizes that she has poked herself with the pencil. The pencil lead is stuck in Donkey’s arm. She is convinced that she struck the snake and wonders if her blood and the snake’s blood have mingled.
After the snake gets away, Donkey tries to wake Hermine but cannot. Donkey discovers that Hermine’s right hand is swollen. Certain that the Massasauga has bitten Hermine, Donkey applies a snakebite salve and waits. When the salve aggravates the swelling, Donkey runs to Ada McIntyre’s home to use her phone. Molly arrives at Rose Cottage in 20 minutes, then orders Donkey to run back to Ada’s to phone 911. Molly discovers that Hermine’s wound is not a snakebite but a bullet wound. EMS take Hermine to the hospital, and as they leave, Molly locates a bullet hole in the screen of the porch. Hermine was shot while sitting in her chair on the porch, then attempted to treat the wound herself, but the wound became infected.
Chapters 0-5 Analysis
While each character plays an integral role, the setting also becomes a potent character in its own right, for even as The Waters provide this unusual family of women with a haven and a stronghold, the swamp also houses the animals and plants that are essential to Hermine’s healing. Additionally, the ecosystem is hostile to other types of crops that are more lucrative in agriculture, and the narrative places great emphasis on the perils of mud and muck. The Zook girls are cautioned not to fall into these areas for fear of being pulled beneath the surface. In this way, the landscape itself takes on a sentient fairy-tale quality in its quiescent yet brooding dangers. Similarly, Rose Cottage’s island-based vantage point symbolizes its austere separation from the rest of Whiteheart, and this sentiment is further emphasized whenever Hermine refers to the world beyond the island as “Nowhere,” diminishing the importance of anything outside of her immediate experience. This disconnect becomes important as Donkeys grows up, for even though she is cut off from the larger world, she is also protected from its cruelties.
As the novel opens, Bonnie Jo Campbell wastes no time in establishing the importance of Matriarchy and the Power of Women within the broader narrative, for even the protagonist’s chosen epithet reflects her self-styled status. The nickname “Herself” is a deliberate subversion of the reverent Irish term “Himself,” which was often bestowed on a household’s patriarch. Living on the fringes of the Whiteheart community, Hermine is simultaneously respected for her healing cures even as she is feared and ridiculed for her unique lifestyle. Her abilities are considered to be otherworldly, and she is even characterized as something of an antichrist in the eyes of Reverend Roy, who orders his parishioners not to use her services. This fearsome reputation enhances the fairy-tale quality of the novel, for Hermine stands as an enigmatic figure in the imaginations of the townsfolk, who often label her a witch. Their curiosity and fascination renders her a powerful figure, an impression that is further strengthened by the fact that her practices are steeped in tradition and fraught with ritual. The fact that Hermine’s grandmother, Baba Rose, was also a healer plays upon the trope of tradition, which is often highly valued in patriarchal societies. It is implied that Hermine inherited her ability as one would inherit a gene or a physical trait. It is also important to note that Hermine’s cures often rely on small doses of poisons taken from poisonous plants and venomous snakes. This practice suggests that her power is imbued with a measure of danger, emphasizing The Interconnectedness of Illness and Healing and invoking the cultural fear of authoritative, powerful women. As the narrative indicates, Hermine does not merely dole out medicine; instead, she forges a deep connection with her patients, even experiencing their suffering through painful and mentally taxing dreams. This ability conveys the deep empathy with which Hermine imparts her remedies. Likewise, she finds ways to commemorate the history of her craft; for example, the string of conch shells that she wears provides a way for her to remember the suffering of those who struggled with an unwanted pregnancy.
In Hermine’s worldview, men are problematic and dangerous at best, and she passes this message along to her daughters and granddaughter. Her history with her husband, Wild Will, demonstrates the reasoning behind this dynamic, for Hermine banishes him when she learns that he has engaged in sex with a teenage Primrose. Although Prim is not his biological daughter, the undertones of incest are present in this act, despite Prim’s insistence that their actions were consensual. Hermine is firm and decisive in placing the blame completely on Wild Will, and in her view, his rash actions erase any good qualities that he may possess. His actions also carry symbolic weight, for once he is banished, Hermine forbids any man from setting foot on Massasauga Island. Her assertion that men are dangerous and must be avoided is further reinforced when Rose Thorn is raped by Titus Clay Senior. As a stark contrast to the strong-willed Zook clan, Campbell portrays the local men as being weak in many ways. Significantly, the Clay men have hemophilia, a condition that prevents the blood from clotting on its own, making small cuts or minor injuries highly dangerous. The “thin-blooded” moniker that Hermine applies to these men therefore serves to metaphorically label them as having weak morals and a cowardly demeanor.
In an inversion of Hermine’s decision to banish men from Massasauga Island, Rose Thorn leaves Whiteheart after she is raped, and this self-banishment is partly an indication of the shame that Rose Thorn feels for her pregnancy. The event is also reminiscent of the traditional practice of sending pregnant teenagers away to convents or other isolated locales to have their children in secret. The fact that the men of Whiteheart are overcome by her beauty paints them as crude and lust-driven rather than compassionate—fully deserving of Hermine’s contemptuous label of “brutes.”
Within this fraught context, Rose Thorn, as the youngest Zook, is regarded as lazy and serves as a foil to Hermine, who labors constantly as a healer, a farmer, and a caretaker of the land around her. Rose Thorn’s return to Whiteheart and Massasauga Island therefore parallels the return of the biblical prodigal son whose wayward actions lead him to recognize his wrongdoings and repent. Rose Thorn does not fault herself for the rape, but she does know that others will judge her for it rather than blaming her attacker. To protect her child, Rose Thorn requests that Dorothy’s paternity be kept a secret. Although Rose Thorn and Hermine have often disagreed, Rose Thorn trusts her mother’s wisdom and knowledge in raising girls and instinctively knows that she herself would be ill-equipped to do so.
