62 pages • 2 hours read
Marian HaleDark Water Rising
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Power of Nature
Content Warning: The novel refers to Black people as “colored,” but this guide will use the term Black to follow the example set by Black scholars, writers, and journalists. The novel contains graphic descriptions of the aftermath of a natural disaster, including loss of life. It references ecological disasters and their devastating effects. The book references and depicts sexism and intense racism and oppression toward Black and Latinx people.
The novel provides a great deal of description of Galveston before the storm, highlighting its massive structures and densely packed houses. Seth describes it as “the largest architectural display I’d ever seen” (11). He makes note of “Palacelike homes draped in vines” that “sat as much as three stories high atop raised basements” (12). As they tour the city, Seth notices “the bright, octagon-shaped dancing pavilion tiered like a massive wedding cake” and the Pagoda Company bathhouses, whose “sloping roofs of striped canvas made them look more like two giant circus tents,” as well as “the three-story Olympia” (23, 24, 25), all of which depict Galveston as a large, well-established city.
Galveston stands on the coast as a symbol of human progress and prosperity, and its residents are so confident in it that they can’t imagine anything bringing the great city down. As the storm approaches, Ella Rose tells Seth about a nearby city that was washed away by a storm but asserts, “everyone says it couldn’t happen again, and certainly not here in Galveston” (64). Despite these assurances, Seth recognizes the power of the ocean from his first night in town, when he lies in bed and listens to “the faint crash of surf against the not-so-distant beach,” which fills his head “with the enormity and sheer power of what lay just out of sight” (36).
The power Seth senses reveals itself during the storm, when the powerful waves topple all of the grand buildings that the novel describes. In contrast to the fun and recreation of the Midway on the family’s first night in Galveston, the storm turns the beach into a nightmare: “I heard cries as waves picked up the two-wheeled portable bathhouses and flung them into the rows of flimsy buildings that made up the Midway, showering brightly painted pieces of wood over the roofs” (71). These are the early stages of the storm, but the ocean makes quick work of the massive structures: “Wild waves rose up like a great hand and wrenched loose the Pagoda’s long staircase, sending planks tumbling through the air. With horror I watched the end of one twin building sway and dip into the surf” (73).
By developing the setting of a bustling city through description of impressive buildings and monuments, then providing vivid description of the water’s destruction, Dark Water Rising effectively demonstrates the power of nature and suggests that humanity should be more respectful of its potential for destruction.
Caring for Kate
The care of Seth’s four-year-old sister, Kate, is a symbol of childhood within the text. Early in the novel, this task falls to Seth, who chafes against it because he sees himself as a “man,” and the job of caring for a young child as the work of a “girl” or a kid. Seth notes, “I was the one who always had to watch out for Kate. I was the one who was expected to answer all her foolish questions” and wonders “Why God couldn’t have sent that child just one big sister instead of three brothers” (7, 2). When asked to take Kate to the outhouse in the morning, Seth wonders, “how long can a man be expected to take his baby sister to the toilet?” (30). Some days later, Seth protests this task to Mama, telling her, “I can’t keep doing this. I’m not a kid anymore” (59). Seth sees caring for Kate as a symbol of his own status, thinking, “Things would never change around here, and I had to face that fact. She and Papa might never see me as a grown man, no matter what I did” (59).
As the family comes to recognize that Seth has transitioned to adulthood, the task of caring for Kate shifts onto Matt, instead:
Kate squirmed, then whined to Mama that she had to go to the outhouse. I saw Mama glance at her skillet of eggs, still cooking, and I knew what was coming. To my surprise, it wasn’t my name she called.
‘Take her for me, won’t you, Matt? She’s still so afraid of the bugs.’
A look of pure horror flashed across his face as he realized that this particular burden had just been passed to him. He groaned. But rose from his chair and took Kate’s hand.
I stifled a grin while Mama brought the skillet to the table and spooned eggs onto my plate, but when she flashed a big smile at me, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I busted out laughing (213).
This transition of responsibility from Seth to Matt marks a change in Seth’s status. Instead of being considered one of the children, Seth now enjoys the benefits of being one of the adults. The passing of Kate as a chore from Seth to Matt is both a material change for Seth and a symbol of his new role. His mother, recognizing him as a man and knowing that he was chafing against the childishness of the chore, chooses to make this change in the family’s division of chores in order to affirm Seth’s adulthood.
Zach Judson/A “True” Carpenter
Zach Judson serves as a symbol in the text, representing the “true carpenter” that Seth believes himself to be. Upon working with the man, Seth notices that he seems to have an almost mystical connection to the materials: “There was something almost mystifying in the way he rested saw and nail against lumber—just for a second—like he was listening, like the wood had whispered something to him I couldn’t quite hear” (49). Seeing a man commune with his work in this way awakens something in Seth. Hale uses the language of awakening to indicate that this feeling is something very significant to Seth:
I’d felt it wake something inside me, and I think Josiah did, too. A quiet something that’d always been waiting in my hands and suspended in my every word to Papa. Today, it shot right through me, lighting me up like the electrical current that lit the city, bridging each of us to our work and to one another, twilight-soft one minute, then strong enough to light the whole world the next. I didn’t understand it, not a bit of it, but thanks to Zach, I recognized it. I’d glimpsed it before—this undercurrent that had been sleeping in me ever since I could remember. Now if I could only bring it to life, make it shine in me the way it did in Zach. Then Papa would know. He'd see I was a true carpenter, and that I could never be anything else (52).
By identifying Seth’s passion for carpentry as an “undercurrent that had been sleeping in [him]” and comparing it to electricity, Hale suggests that there is something more to the calling than a simple desire to do the work. As Seth processes his passion and determination to be a carpenter, he continues to return to thoughts of Zach: “I thought of Zach’s quiet, abiding strength, the way Josiah and I had plumbed our own depths, tapped our own strengths, and the flutter settled. My work was clean and precise. I was a carpenter” (197). For Seth, “being a carpenter” is more than performing the work of carpentry. It is an intrinsic part of the self that guides one’s hands and efforts. The language Hale uses suggests not just that Seth would prefer to be a carpenter, but also that he is destined to be a carpenter and could be nothing else. Though Seth knows Zach only a few days, the man’s work and apparent relationship with his materials provides Seth with an idealized example of a “true carpenter.” This parallel between Seth and carpentry is likely meant to be biblical, too, as Seth is the son taking over the new carpentry business at the novel’s end amid the city’s rebirth after the storm.
