Darkness

The novel proposes that there are two kinds of darkness: the darkness of despair, but more often a warm, comforting darkness which symbolizes truth, hope and wisdom. While imprisoned below deck, Kosii “thought his eyes were accustomed to darkness, but this was a different kind entirely. This dark had nothing to do with inky night or ancestral shadows or the ebony of playmates and lovers”; instead, “this dark lived inside the captors like a chasm that nothing could ever fill no matter what was tossed into it” (240). However, this experience of darkness as hellish and empty is anomalous in the novel, underlining the monstrosity of the situation. More frequently, darkness figures as a positive force and symbol for good, although some characters turn away from it or have to learn to embrace it. “Maybe Isaiah was afraid of the dark,” Samuel reflects, “but he wasn’t...