THE WATER DANCER BY TA-NEHISI COATES

The Water Dancer

     In Ta-Nehisi Coates' novel The Water Dancer, however, the Task has a much darker meaning. The Task is the name the narrator, Hiram, gives to slavery - and he refers to himself and his fellow slaves as the Tasked. The masters he refers to, somewhat mockingly, as the Quality.

    The Water Dancer follows Hiram on his path from slavery to freedom via the Underground, putting a new face on the underground railroad. As a slave, Hiram shines a different light on the world of Virginia's tobacco plantations, and on those who drive them while desperately longing for escape.You may think of slavery as the one human being owning another - an evil situation, but simple to understand. In The Water Dancer, narrator Hiram Walker explores the nature of slavery from the inside.For Hiram and other Tasked people, slavery is a lack. A lack of control, a lack of hope, a lack of stability, and a lack of simple everyday comforts enjoyed by the Quality. The Tasked are expected to be experts on planting, growing, housekeeping, cooking, sewing, entertaining, and even personal grooming. However, they are also forbidden to enjoy the fruits of those labors - the fresh gingerbread biscuit, the lovely new bonnet, or the fat dividend from the sale of a good crop.The Water Dancer dwells heavily on the theme of memory. Hiram possesses an unusual power, that of Conduction  that he can move to a different location without traveling the distance between the two places. He is slow to understand and develop his gift, but he realizes right away that it is fueled by memory. While he is conducting, he sees his mother, his aunt, his grandmother, and dozens of other faces from his past.The Water Dancer presents conflicting views as to the nature of true freedom. Hiram chafes under slavery. As soon as he declares his intent to escape, others begin to warn him that freedom may not be what he expects. Georgie, a freed slave, tells Hiram, ''Ain't nobody out, son, you hear? Ain't no out. All gotta serve''. Corinne, a member both of the Quality and of the Underground, insists that ''Freedom, true freedom, is a master too, you see... What you must now accept is that all of us are bound to something... All must name a master to serve. All must choose''. Hiram slowly finds himself agreeing with this, feeling bound to the Underground when he escapes from the plantation, and even returning to the plantation for more Underground work.

-Magturo, Lyndon A.