In Rivers Solomon’s novel The Deep, they use an extended metaphor of empty spaces (such as cavities and vessels) to depict the Wajinrus’ forgotten history as a literal void carved into its people. This is clearest in Yetu, whose role as historian turns her body into a sort of container for communal memory, one that is filled and emptied at a great cost. Solomon uses this metaphor to urge their audience to see the trauma of historical loss as not merely just emotional but constitutional; it shapes who a person becomes through a history that they must hold (in Yetu’s case) or the history they lack (in the Wajinru’s).
In chapter one of The Deep, Amaba says:
One can only go for so long without asking ‘who am I?’, ‘where do I come from?’, ‘what does all this mean?’, ‘what is being?’, ‘what came before me and what might come after?’. Without answers there is only a hole. A hole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities (Solomon 8).
Solomon uses repetitive anaphoric rhetorical questions—“Who am I? What does this all mean? What is being?” This repetitive structure creates momentum and rhythm creating a feeling of longing and searching in order to emphasize the uncertainty and human need for understanding oneself. Most prominent is the imagery of the “hole” and “cavities.” These words visually create a picture of emptiness and loss due to a past, or in this case, history, that has been erased. The “hole where a history should be” is an absence of ancestry, a lost and forgotten origin. The “hole” in this case would be a symbol of a void left from the disconnection from heritage and identity. Amaba’s last words, “we are cavities,” extend this metaphor of a “hole” in history as a way to describe how trauma and loss quite literally shape people. There isn’t merely just a “hole” in history; the people most impacted by that “hole” become empty and hollow—like a cavity. In Pauline Alexis Gumbs article “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals,” Gumbs discusses what it means to Remember, and in reference to what she has been deprived of, the people and things she has lost, she states: “I’ve come back for all the names I’ve never known since you were stolen. And I am never far away from you in fact. I am creator and creation. Right here, the source of all love ever” (Gumbs 35). Gumbs phrase “names I’ve never known” parallels how the Wanjinru’s historical trauma creates gaps in identity. Which, in turn, connects back to Solomon’s metaphor of “holes,” these losses that exist not because the past doesn’t exist but because it was violently taken from them. Furthermore, when Gumbs says “I am never far away from you,” she resists the idea of total absence of what is lost. The Wajinru’s past and history, for most of the novel, is just out of reach, leaving them structurally hollow, rarely able to access the past that shapes them. On the other hand, the rememberings are literally “never far” from her as her role as historian. Yetu becomes the vessel of collective memory defined by what she holds. While the Wajinru, stripped of that history, become cavities defined by what they lack and are hungry for. Further, the line “I am creator and creation” suggests that the act of remembering, as well as recalling history, is an act of survival and identity. Yetu, and the Wajinru as a whole, are “created” and are self made (creator) by the lack of their history, though that history does not just fully disappear; rather, it restructures bodies and identities through its absence.
In succession to the first quote, Amaba believes that Yetu wouldn’t understand what it’s like due to her being the “historian.” Though Yetu thinks to herself that she “did know what it was like. After all, wasn’t cavity just another word for vessel?” (Solomon 8). The Oxford Dictionary defines cavity as “an empty space within a solid object, in particular the human body,” and a vessel is described as “a hollow container, especially used to hold liquid, such as a bowl or a cask.” A vessel, in Yetu’s case, is just another sort of cavity. Yetu is a vessel (cavity) made to hold the past and ancestors for the Wajinru people, then, when the time comes, those are scooped out of her and poured into the cavities of her people. And a cavity left untreated, left unfilled, can lead to pain and infection in a person, much like a cavity in one’s tooth. Solomon’s use of “cavity” and “vessel” is evocative of Gumb’s understanding of identity formation, where she explains: “I think about repetition and code, and when we prioritise what communication and why. And how we ever learn our names in this mess. And the need that makes us generalise and identify. Become specific and vague” (Gumbs 31). Repetition and code parallels Solomon’s repeated metaphor, depicting how history is encoded into one’s body, not simply just told through language. The pondering of “when we prioritise what communication and why” reflects the Wajinru’s having a Historian hold all the memories of their people, then only annually placing those memories into the people. This form of communication of the Wajinru people depicts how when history is communicated, or withheld, is just as important in shaping one’s identity as the history itself. Gumbs goes on to describe the movement between “generalizing” and “identifying,” which corresponds with how Solomon depicts the Wajinru’s collective versus Yetu’s individual identity. For the Wajinru people, their trauma is shared or “generalized,” while Yetu’s is so individual to her as a hyper-specific vessel of memory. Gumbs’ insight to identity becoming specific and vague exemplifies Solomon’s cavity and vessel paradox. The Wajinru’s identity is vague because of how removed the past has been from them. Whereas Yetu’s is painfully specific due to holding all the ancestral memories, which overwhelm her body. Gumbs quote reinforces Solomon’s metaphor that history is constitutional and how the distribution of the past and memories is determinant in how whole or hollow someone becomes.
In chapter five of the novel, after Yetu has left the Wajinru and her role as historian, she meets two legs and finds herself irresolute without the rememberings. Suka (one of the two legs) holds out her hand, sparking a lost memory in Yetu, but “when she reached out for the past, nothing was there. The emptiness inside her stretched far and wide in every direction like a cavern. It was lonely. She had thought herself unmoored when she was the historian, but this did not compare. She was a blip” (Solomon 78). For the first time, since before she was about fourteen, Yetu is experiencing what the rest of the Wajinru’s lives are like. As she tries to find where or what this memory is “the emptiness inside her stretched far and wide in every direction like a cavern,” there is yet another metaphor/simile for this emptiness that Solomon describes—cavern. A cavern, according to Merriam Webster, is a cave, one of large or indefinite extent. This simile expands Solomon’s metaphor from that of something that holds (cavity) or carries (vessel) to something that is an expansive, inhabitable absence. Comparing the lost memories to a cavern is as if to say that Yetu was living in a space of absence. Solomon describes this absence, ending the quote with a fragment: “she was a blip.” Now that she is unable to reach for those memories, she has a diminished sense of self. Like the Wajinru, without her history, she is a “blip,” there is a certain insignificance and impermanence to her identity. In Helen Rozwadowski’s book Vast Expanses: A History of the Ocean, Rozwadowski discusses the sea as a cultural, environmental, and geopolitical historical archive. To evolve our relationship with the ocean, she declares that “we must transform our understanding of the sea, to one bound with history and interconnected with humanity. Such a new vision, with new metaphors, can form the foundation for positive change” (Rozwadowski 227). Rozwadowski’s claim that the sea is “bound with history and interconnected with humanity” aligns with the Wajinru’s connection to memory, where their trauma originates in histories that are submerged, not erased. Additionally, Rozwadowski mentions this need for “new metaphors,” which we see Solomon depict in the Wajinru, especially Yetu, where memory is something physically carried in the body. Solomon’s metaphor pushes forth the “foundation for positive change” that Rozwadowski calls for; the metaphor of void spaces replaces abstract notions of history being intangible, with bodily constitutional consequences. Essentially, what Rozwadowski means is that metaphors shape ethical outcomes, hence Solomon’s metaphor demonstrating the conceptualization of history as something detachable at the cost of one’s identity and wholeness. For example, when Yetu becomes “a blip” without the rememberings, Solomon affirms the danger of a worldview that disconnects humanity from its histories, as warned by Rozwadowski.
By the end of the novel, in chapter nine, Yetu realizes a better way for her and her people to hold and carry history. As Amaba begs for her to not bear it all alone, Yetu ponders for a moment, “usually, after the remembrance, the historian waited nearby, empty of memories, but what would happen if they stayed? […] could they live out their days all sharing the memories together?” (Solomon 148). The historian being “empty of memories” continues Solomon’s extended metaphor of the body as a void to be filled or left hollow, thus reinforcing memory and history as being housed within. The phrase “empty of memories” also treats memory and history as something tangible that can occupy space. Yetu then rhetorically poses the questions “what would happen if they stayed?… sharing memories together?” This line of questioning invites the reader, as well as Yetu, to imagine an alternative structure of sharing history and memories. This communal language of “they” and “together” raises the possibility of distributed memory, challenging the isolation of the historian’s role and the Wajinru’s emptiness and longing for the past. By posing this question of a new way of sharing memories, Solomon urges their reader to consider the moral costs of isolating trauma to a single body, along with the trauma to one’s body of not having any history to hold. Rozwadowski, too, acknowledges the importance of knowing and understanding the past, especially the past in relation to the ocean: “Many environmental narratives lapse into tales of inevitable decline. Until we recognize the ocean’s past, and our inextricable relationship to it, we will not make much headway in changing that relationship for the better” (Rozwadowski 227). Both Rozwadowski and Solomon emphasize this “inextricable relationship” to the past, whether that be ecological or cultural. There is an emphatic importance to understanding that history, or memory, is not something that is merely disposable but deeply entwined to humanity. When Yetu proposes the idea of a shared remembrance, she too rejects the narrative of “inevitable decline” by suggesting that a collective reconnection to history can reform a people’s suffering. Solomon and Rozwadowski implore their audience to heal by refusing narratives of inevitability and embracing shared responsibility for history and its trauma. It is through this shared responsibility that one’s relationship to their environment can change for the better.
Solomon’s overarching metaphor solicits their audience to understand the dangers and harm that a loss of history and ancestry causes a person. It leaves them filled with questions and uncertainty, and a hole that is hard to fill. By using this metaphor throughout the novel, Solomon implores one to think about how history is told, how history is held, and better ways of sharing history. The novel portrays the real human costs of the erasure of histories and an urge to imagine the advantages of shared history, especially histories that are often (and quite literally) lost to sea; histories that need shared “remembering” to enable healing rather than prolonging trauma.
Works Cited
Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals.” Soundings (London, England), vol. 78, no. 78, 2021, pp. 20–37, https://doi.org/10.3898/SOUN.78.01.2021.
Rozwadowski, Helen M.. Vast Expanses : A History of the Oceans, Reaktion Books, Limited, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sdsu/detail.action?docID=5631456.
Solomon, Rivers. The Deep. Saga Press, 2019.