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 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “There Are All Kinds of Ways to Save Lives”
That summer, the community initiates a tradition of gathering at Boneset Table each Saturday. Donkey accompanies Rose Thorn to these gatherings from a desire to look after her. Lorena ends her relationship with Titus and moves away from Whiteheart, and its citizens feel that it is right that Rose Thorn and Titus are together again. One Saturday, a local teacher gives Donkey a geometry book, and the girl schemes about how to attend school. She watches as people are drawn to Rose Thorn and recognizes that the woman’s presence soothes them and makes them happy. However, the absence of Wild Will—whose boarded-up house is nearby—and of Hermine is palpable.
Molly comes to Rose Cottage every other Saturday to check on Hermine, but Hermine still refuses to speak to her. Molly visits with Rose Thorn at the party each Saturday night before leaving. Meanwhile, Donkey begins fulfilling some of the people’s medicine requests and leaving them at Boneset Table to create the impression that Hermine is providing the remedies. Whenever Hermine helps her, she adds too much of the poisonous elements to the medicine. Donkey does not know whether Hermine does this intentionally or if her sense of proportion has been lost.
One day, Donkey discovers that the Massasauga snake is still in the medicine pantry. She tells it about Rose Thorn’s cancer. On another Saturday in August, Roger and some of the other children pry one of the plywood boards off a window of Wild Will’s house, which is called Boneset House. The next Saturday, Donkey sneaks inside and explores. In a second-floor bedroom, she meets a ghost in the form of an old man with a beard. They converse, and Donkey tells the ghost of Rose Thorn’s cancer and of her desire to attend school. Their conversation is interrupted by a shriek. A girl has cut herself on the broken glass of the window downstairs. Later, Donkey discovers that the key she found in the medicine pantry fits the deadbolt of Boneset House; she begins visiting the house occasionally.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Freedom Has a Cost”
On a Saturday in late August, Donkey and Roger sit in the back of Larry Darling’s truck where his dog, Rocky, is caged. Donkey hears the dog asking her to set him free, but she refuses. Instead, she offers to bring him water, but as she sneaks a bowl into the cage, he escapes. Rocky runs across the bridge and heads straight for Rose Cottage where Ozma is tied to a tree with twine. He attacks Ozma, biting her side. Donkey catches up to Rocky and kicks him as Ozma sneaks away. However, Ozma pauses to look at Hermine, whom Ozma is dedicated to protecting, and Rocky attacks again. By this time, Titus has reached the island, and Hermine has raised the bridge behind him.
The two dogs struggle, falling into the water near the bridge. Though Donkey wants to run in as well, Titus hold her back, saying that Rocky will need to let go of Ozma so that he can swim. After some time, Rocky is captured and returned to his cage, but Ozma remains missing. The next morning, Donkey finds Ozma’s body on shore and lies down beside it. That night, they tie rocks to the dog’s body and bury her in the water in the way that Hermine has instructed them to do when she dies. A week later, Titus arrives with a female pit bull puppy, but Donkey is convinced she does not deserve the animal and refuses to accept her. Hermine suggests that they bake a pie. She, Donkey, and Molly bake a blueberry pie and eat it after dinner. For the first time, Donkey feels that the old Hermine has returned.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Zero Is Not Nothing, and Infinity Is Not Everything”
Fall arrives and the harvest is plentiful. Children are busy with school and sports, and so the Saturday parties shrink. Donkey cans and preserves produce and learns about imaginary numbers, which her book explains can be invented if needed. She imagines inventing a numeric formula to cure cancer. Meanwhile, she continues to wish away Rose Thorn’s tumor. Donkey asks Rose Thorn to stay for the winter, and Rose Thorn agrees to do so if Prim comes to Rose Cottage as well. Prim arrives on Halloween.
Hermine has become more adept at completing tasks with only her left hand. She suddenly tells Donkey that she will resume milking the cow, hinting that Donkey should eavesdrop on the conversation that will ensue amongst the three daughters. Donkey hides in the bedroom and eavesdrops, learning that Prim plans to stay for only one day. Molly cites Hermine’s gunshot wound as proof that it is not safe for any of them to remain at Rose Cottage; she wants to move Hermine to Boneset House. Prim defends Hermine and reveals that she still speaks to Wild Will. Rose Thorn awakens and joins her sisters. While Molly cooks dinner, the three argue about Donkey’s lack of formal education and debate whether to force Hermine to move and sell the island to the church. When Hermine returns from milking, the women sit down to eat. Hermine calls Donkey out from her hiding place. The sisters are surprised; they believed Donkey to have been outside helping Hermine. As the meal begins, Donkey blurts out the news of Rose Thorn’s cancer.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Truth Will Set You Free”
The women are stunned by Donkey’s revelation. Molly declares that Rose Thorn will immediately begin treatment. Hermine silently realizes that she has been instinctively gathering so many new sources of poison because she must make an effort to heal Rose Thorn’s cancer. Prim agrees that Rose Thorn should begin medical treatment, but Rose Thorn protests. She insists on being allowed to seek treatment on her own terms, when she is ready. Amidst the arguing, Rose Thorn asks for a drink and prepares to leave for the Muck Rattler, the local tavern. Donkey retrieves the whiskey that she has hidden deep in the medicine pantry along with the poisons Hermine has been collecting. It is the final bottle of Wild Will’s whiskey. Over drinks, Prim and Molly make a plan. Rose Thorn will begin treatment at a nearby hospital, then she will be relocated to California if better treatment is needed. Once Rose Thorn agrees to this plan, Molly reveals that she has cooked a small amount of meat into the pie she has just served. Donkey gets angry and smashes a clam shell with her palm. Rose Thorn offers her some of the whiskey, and Donkey takes one drink, then another. Prim realizes that Donkey has consumed the snake rattle from the bottle, just as Wild Will used to. Passed out in bed that night, Donkey catches pieces of conversation between Prim and Rose Thorn. The conversation reveals that Prim brought Rose Thorn to Rose Cottage as a foundling; she is Rose Thorn’s biological mother. Rose Thorn was conceived from the relationship between Prim and Wild Will.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Love Isn’t Everything”
The next morning, both Donkey and Hermine awaken with hangovers from the whiskey. Donkey milks the cow as usual, and Hermine makes coffee and breakfast. When Hermine asks Donkey to wake Rose Thorn, Donkey cannot find her. She searches the house and the island, but Rose Thorn is gone. Titus phones Prim when she returns to California, but Prim states that Rose Thorn did not come with her.
Donkey and Titus search for a week, but there is no sign of Rose Thorn. Time passes, and the winter solstice arrives. As winter sets in, all the citizens of Whiteheart are off-balance, as if Rose Thorn’s absence has cast a spell over them. Donkey hopes that in Rose Thorn’s absence, Molly will renew her efforts to enroll Donkey in school, but Molly is too frustrated and saddened by Rose Thorn’s absence. In time, men begin gathering on Saturdays at Boneset Table as an homage to her. One Saturday, Donkey sneaks out to the bridge to listen to them, recalling the night she eavesdropped on her mother and aunts. The men eventually see her there and beckon her over. Whitby, who is still angry at himself for failing to reveal that Titus Senior attacked and raped Rose Thorn, pulls Donkey onto his lap fiercely. She resists, but he holds her tighter before letting go. In his frustration, he grabs his chainsaw from his truck and proceeds to cut down a large tree. Three other men join in, working until the willow lands in the swamp. Driving home, Whitby will admit that he wished the tree would have hit Hermine as he cut it down.
The next day, Donkey is shocked by how much the landscape is changed by the missing tree. Boneset Table can now be viewed directly from the island, and she feels exposed and threatened. Titus asks her to bolt the cottage door at night. A few days later, he receives a phone call from Lorena, informing him that she is pregnant. Lorena returns to Whiteheart, and everyone is forced to give up their hopes that Titus and Rose Thorn will marry.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
The theme of Matriarchy and the Power of Women becomes prominent in this section with the renewed presence of Rose Thorn, for her energy reshapes the island and Whiteheart alike. Donkey emphasizes the way in which her mere presence improves people’s moods and creates a new harmony in Whiteheart. Although Hermine criticizes Rose Thorn for being lazy, Rose Thorn’s very identity works its own magic without any effort on her part, and she serves as an unofficial bridge to unite the men and women of Whiteheart, who are frequently at odds with one another in their separate spheres. Without intending to, Rose Thorn also begins the tradition of the Saturday parties, drawing people to her and healing them with her presence, which is implied to possess a similar magic to that of Hermine’s arcane remedies. However, during these parties, Donkey feels torn between her mother and her grandmother. She feels responsible for watching over both of them and fears that harm might come to Hermine because of her absent hand. Likewise, because Rose Thorn is known to remain in Whiteheart only temporarily, Donkey feels compelled to keep her in her sight, as if this vigil will prevent her from leaving again.
These unspoken fears of Donkey’s foreshadow the trouble that occurs with Rocky even as her act of accidentally releasing him from his cage parallels her inadvertent release of the deadly Massasauga from Hermine’s bucket. In both instances, Donkey insists that she does not intend to free the creature, despite her innate desire to do so. Donkey’s ability to communicate with animals is also evident in both instances, suggesting that, like Hermine, she bears unique talents of her own. In Donkey’s mind, both events cause irrevocable damage, as Donkey associates the escape of the snake with the loss of Hermine’s hand, and Rocky’s release directly results in the death of Ozma. Donkey fully blames herself for Ozma’s death and regards this as a punishment for freeing the Massasauga and violating Hermine’s mandate. Though her motivations are arguably kind-hearted and no one accuses Donkey of intending harm, she refuses to forgive herself for her lapses in judgment.
In a direct manifestation of The Danger of Secrets, Donkey eavesdrops twice in this section, once on women and once on men, and these separate events demonstrate the separation of men and women in Whiteheart. By listening in on both conversations, Donkey acts as a conduit between the two worlds, similar to the ways in which Rose Thorn draws people together. Additionally, her actions reveal the complexities of family dynamics, for she only eavesdrops on her mother and aunts at Hermine’s direction. The scene therefore proves that Hermine, who is knowledgeable in all things relevant to the family, suspects that her daughters are plotting against her, and this proves accurate when Molly declares that Hermine should be moved from Rose Cottage to Boneset House. Significantly, the presence of Prim provides a balance between Rose Thorn and Molly, for she agrees with each of them on separate issues, first siding with Rose Thorn on the issue of where Hermine should live, then agreeing with Molly that Rose Thorn should receive medical treatment for her cancer. In this way, Prim’s brief presence moderates the otherwise polarizing dynamics, providing balance between the extreme positions of Molly and Rose Thorn. Donkey also notes that Prim’s return, like that of Rose Thorn, brings completion to Rose Cottage. In this way, the narrative implies that when the women are united, their collective power reinforces the matriarchy that Hermine has established.
The second incidence of Donkey’s eavesdropping leads the men to cut down the tree at Boneset Table. This act represents an expression of the men’s helplessness and frustration upon the disappearance of Rose Thorn. The wanton destruction of the tree suggests that the men regain a sense of power and authority by destroying the natural environment. The act therefore reinforces Hermine’s insistence that men are brutes and that they would destroy the island and its flora and fauna if they were allowed to set foot on it. The incident also implies that Rose Thorn’s absence has upset the harmony and balance between the male and female segments of society, adding tension to the novel’s conflict and emphasizing the significance of Matriarchy and the Power of Women.
