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.
Themes
Matriarchy and the Power of Women
The area known as The Waters is unique in that it houses a matriarchal society. Traditionally, many cultures worldwide have been patriarchal—ruled by men—and Bonnie Jo Campbell intentionally reverses this trope by infusing Hermine Zook with a near-omnipotent authority within the context of her family. For example, when Hermine ousts Wild Will from Massasauga Island for the crime of having sex with Prim, his adopted daughter, she takes measures to ensure that the women for whom she is responsible retain agency over their own bodies. From this point, Hermine allows no men to set foot on the island, and this is her way of keeping the island pure and untainted. She insists to Donkey that men (whom she labels “brutes”) would harm the natural world, damaging its plants and waters.
Because the island is forbidden, some of the men of Whiteheart resent Hermine and by extension, reject her healing abilities. Stripped of their power to control these particular women, they are at a loss as to how to exert their masculinity. Many of them turn to guns as a means to control the area of The Waters, which has become the territory of women. Only Titus Junior is the exception to this dynamic, for he is permitted to access the island and Rose Cottage and therefore stands as an anomaly. Because Hermine believes his hemophilia (or “thinblood,” as she calls it) to be indicative of weakness, he is regarded as nonthreatening. The notion of “thinblood” suggests that Titus possesses fewer harmful masculine traits that Hermine seeks to protect her daughters and granddaughters from experiencing. Significantly, Hermine is unable to keep Rose Thorn completely safe from the dangers of “brutes” such as Titus Senior, who attacks and rapes her. This violence reinforces Hermine’s insistence on a women-only society.
When the six men of Whiteheart come to Rose Thorn’s aid in the delivery of her second child, they obtain a hint of the feminine power that has terrified many of them. Throughout the novel, it is suggested that women’s true power lies in the ability to create life and bear children. By helping Rose Thorn with the birth of her baby, the men obtain direct access to the forbidden island even as they gain metaphorical access to a small fragment of female power and authority. Although they cannot obtain these abilities themselves, playing a small role in the process infuses them with positive energy.
The Danger of Secrets
Secrets abound throughout the novel, the most serious of which concern certain characters’ paternity and maternity. Both Prim and Rose Thorn come to Hermine as foundlings and grow up entirely unaware of their biological parentage. By raising foundlings, Hermine carries on a tradition begun by Baba Rose, one that instills a sense of power and agency in girls who may otherwise have had unfortunate lives. When Rose Thorn secretly gives birth to Dorothy, the child conceived when Titus Clay Senior raped her, she does not hesitate to bring the baby to Hermine to raise. Late in the novel, the true relationships between the “sisters” are revealed; Primrose is not Rose Thorn’s older sister, but her mother, having conceived Rose Thorn via a sexual relationship with Wild Will, her adoptive father. When Donkey finally discovers the secret, however, it helps to explain why Rose Thorn is drawn away from Rose Cottage to California. Donkey, who reveres Rose Thorn and wants always to be within her presence, understands Rose Thorn’s longing to be with her biological mother, Prim.
Rose Thorn’s need to come to terms with her own paternity is further bound up in the secret she has kept about the paternity of Donkey, who was conceived of the rape by Titus Clay Senior. Rose Thorn keeps this information a secret out of fear that it may be misconstrued if the townsfolk were to become aware of this issue. Hermine agrees that women are sometimes unjustly blamed for the actions of men, and she concedes that the community might reject the idea of rape and instead assume that Rose Thorn tried to seduce Titus Senior. This injustice causes Rose Thorn to conceal Donkey’s parentage from her, despite Donkey’s pleading. The denial of this knowledge, while well-intentioned, only frustrates Donkey, and she regards Rose Thorn’s withholding of this information as unfair.
This particular secret gains an additional layer with the fact that Whitby is privy to the rape as well, having witnessed the crime. He is burdened with guilt over his inaction, but he keeps the secret out of a misguided belief that men must not judge the actions of other men. His complicity in the rape, as Whitby comes to regard it, plagues him for years, and he finally unburdens himself to Titus Junior. When Titus Junior learns this information, he initially expresses disbelief, certain that Whitby is lying out of spite or a desire for vengeance. However, when Titus Junior comes to terms with the reality of his father’s violence, he undergoes a positive shift at the end of the novel, accepting that the form of masculinity he was taught is highly problematic. This realization allows him to accept that even though he and Rose Thorn share a deep love, she will never marry him. Thus, although certain secrets are kept to protect specific characters, it is only when these secrets come to light that the characters are able to heal their oldest wounds and develop a greater sense of compassion.
The Interconnectedness of Illness and Healing
Integral to the novel’s plot and conflict is Hermine’s talent for healing others with natural remedies. She has inherited this trait from her grandmother, Baba Rose, just as one might inherit a physical, genetic trait. Because Hermine’s healing medicines differ greatly from those used by mainstream science, much of Whiteheart regards her as a witch. However, because her remedies are effective, even those who criticize Hermine make use of her medicines. Rose Thorn and Donkey both believe that her treatments succeed where hospitals and modern medicine fail. Importantly, Hermine’s treatments often require a small amount of poison to fight the illness; knowing the correct proportion of these dangerous substances is further testament to Hermine’s wisdom and skill.
Throughout the novel, there are specific wounds that Hermine cannot or does not effectively heal, such as when her hand must ultimately be amputated due to the infection she incurs from the gunshot wound. The loss of her hand is deeply symbolic, as it is the hand with which she makes her medicines. As the novel unfolds, Hermine insists that Donkey take on the task of making medicine, and the girl serves as Hermine’s literal and metaphorical right hand. In this way, Donkey carries on the family legacy of healing, inheriting her grandmother’s abilities just as Hermine once inherited them from Baba Rose. Although Hermine cannot cure Rose Thorn’s cancer, she does attempt to do so by gathering strong and dangerous poisons, and Rose Thorn’s return to Rose Cottage is motivated by her hope that Hermine can heal her. Significantly, Rose Thorn delays traditional cancer treatment in order to focus on her spiritual healing for a while, but in the end, mainstream medicine provides her with the cure that eludes Hermine.
The ambiguous connection between illness and healing is further emphasized when Donkey injures herself via the bite of the Massasauga snake, certain that the snake’s blood mingles with her own. Thus, having been infused with the snake’s venom, Donkey believes that she now possesses its dangerous healing power. When she later willingly places herself in harm’s way to prevent the snake from biting Titus or Rose Moon, Donkey demonstrates selflessness and a belief that she is immune to the snake’s venom. While this belief is somewhat misguided, the novel nonetheless suggests that illness and healing are intertwined, existing in a form of harmony that echoes the mathematic principles that delight and fascinate Donkey.
