Waterland: Analysis of Major Characters
"Waterland: Analysis of Major Characters" offers a deep exploration of the intricate relationships and tragic histories of its key figures, primarily set against the backdrop of the Fen Country in Norfolk, England. Central to the narrative is Tom Crick, a history teacher facing retirement, who grapples with his past and the impact of personal tragedies on his present life. His wife, Mary Metcalf Crick, struggles with mental health issues, exacerbated by a traumatic abortion and an ill-fated attempt to become a mother through kidnapping. The narrative also delves into the complexities of Tom's half-brother, Dick, whose jealousy leads to violence and ultimately his own demise, highlighting the darker elements of familial ties.
Supporting characters include Tom's father, Henry Crick, and his grandfather, Ernest Atkinson, whose legacies significantly influence the family's dynamics. The story also features figures like Lewis Scott, the headmaster who dismisses the value of history, and Price, a student questioning the relevance of the past amidst a bleak future. Through these characters, "Waterland" examines themes of memory, history, and the cyclical nature of life, inviting readers to reflect on the significance of storytelling in understanding human experiences.
Waterland: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Graham Swift
First published: 1983
Genre: Novel
Locale: Greenwich, England, and the Fenlands of Norfolk
Plot: Novel of ideas
Time: The 1970's, with flashbacks to the eighteenth, nineteenth, and earlier twentieth centuries
Tom Crick, a history teacher at a private secondary school in Greenwich, England, the spot where time can be said to begin. The narrator, in his mid-fifties, has been an instructor of history for thirty years and is being forced to retire because the authorities contend that history has little value in the modern world. As a means of understanding his part in his wife's recent mental breakdown and in the deaths of his half brother Dick and boyhood friend Freddie Parr, and in response to his students' lack of interest in the more orthodox history of the French Revolution, Crick tells his students stories, stories from his own life and the life of his family in the Fen Country of Norfolk.
Mary Metcalf Crick, Tom's wife. Mary, also from the Fenlands, has been married to Tom for as long as he has been a teacher. They have been friends and lovers since childhood. While still in her teens, the sexually precocious Mary becomes pregnant by Tom and has an abortion that renders her permanently sterile. After being a supportive teacher's wife and working with the elderly for many years, Mary, believing that God wants her and Tom to have children, kidnaps a baby from a supermarket. The baby is quickly returned, but Mary no longer has any contact with reality and is admitted to a mental institution.
Dick Crick, Tom's older and retarded half brother. He is the offspring of Tom's mother, Helen Atkinson, from an incestuous relationship with her father, Ernest. Undeveloped both emotionally and intellectually, Dick is like his motorcycle, more machine than human. In the early 1940's, when in his late teens, he becomes attracted to Mary Metcalf and she to him. In his jealousy, he kills sixteen-year-old Freddie Parr with an ale bottle, part of the legacy left to him by his true father. Fearing arrest, he commits suicide by drowning himself in the Fens' River Ouse.
Henry Crick, Tom's biological father but not Dick's. He is the keeper of a lock on the Fens' River Leem. The Cricks are an old Fenland family, but none of the members are either wealthy or prominent. Injured physically and mentally in World War I, Henry is nursed back to health by Helen Atkinson. Aware of the Atkinson legacy, Henry attempts to spare Dick from the truth, but ultimately without success.
Helen Atkinson, Henry's wife and the mother of Tom and Dick. She is very beautiful, and her father turns to her for emotional and sexual consolation in his own disappointments. She dies when her sons are both young, but she passes on her father's legacy to their son Dick—a trunk filled with Ernest Atkinson's writings and bottles of strong ale.
Ernest Atkinson, Tom's grandfather and Dick's father and grandfather. The Atkinsons, a prominent Fenland family since the eighteenth century, founded their wealth and power on brewing ale. Emotionally affected by his family's history and society's disasters, Ernest fathers a child by his daughter, a child whom he hopes will save the world. That child becomes the retarded Dick. After Helen's marriage to Henry Crick, which Ernest reluctantly accepts, he commits suicide.
Lewis Scott, the headmaster at Tom Crick's Greenwich school. Disturbed that Tom is not following the required curriculum of the French Revolution and fearing the negative publicity created by Mary Crick's kidnapping incident, Scott wants Tom Crick to retire. A scientist by training, Scott sees no value in studying the past; to him, the future is everything, and history has no connection to it.
Price, a sixteen-year-old student in Tom's history class. Price also doubts the value of history, but, unlike Scott, Price sees no future. The world is threatened with imminent destruction, and Price fears that history cannot influence that end. The bright and challenging Price becomes the focus of Tom's storytelling.
Thomas Atkinson, a brewer and the Fen Country's leading citizen during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Atkinson family reaches its apogee of fame and influence with the career of Thomas Atkinson. At that moment Thomas, in a fit of jealousy, strikes and permanently injures Sarah, his wife.
Sarah Atkinson, Thomas' young and beautiful wife. After being injured by her husband while in her thirties, she never recovers her mental health, although she lives for many years. Her demented presence hangs over the Atkinson family and the town for decades, even after her death.
Frederick Parr, a sixteen-year-old friend of Tom, Mary, and Dick. Something of a braggart, Freddie is killed in 1943 by a jealous Dick after Mary, to spare Tom, intimates to Dick that it was Freddie who made her pregnant.