Leviza Murtazayeva, Formal Critique “The Water Dancers”

Reviewer’s name: Leviza Murtazayeva

English 1141 Creative writing

Formal critique “The Water Dancers”

Author: Ta-Hehisi Coates

Dialogue: I enjoyed reading the first chapter of the novel by Ta-Hehisi Coates, who wrote “The Water Dancers.” The dialogue included was between the narrator who has been witnessing his mother and every other characters around. Some of them were named such as Maynard may have a big part in the novel. Since the author added many dialogues between the narrator and Maynard. When the narrator needed help though Maynard was acting very apathetic towards the main character as if he was not important to him.

Plot: The narrator is obviously a task worker which in other words means that he is enslaved by the character Maynard, who is very apathetic and cruel. The slaved are working on a big plantation, and the whole narrator’s family is involved. The author also mentions that the narrator is always the one to help out Maynard in bad situations but there would be consequences where the narrator did not want to do so. When the bridge collapses, both Maynard and the narrator drown, as they do so, the narrator witness a ghost of his slave mother, who is handing him a necklace into his hand which he considers as his long awaited reward.

Question: Why did the narrator see the ghost of his mother when he was drowning, was that some type of sign?

Point of view: The author did a good job at writing the writing the first from the narrator’s point of view. It was detailed to the point of where it was nice to know that the narrator had his own straight forward opinion of what is going on. He was unhappy about the way things turn out and his so-called brother from the same father, white priveledge. Maynard is viewed as a very cruel person.

Question: Why was is that the mixed son, the narrator, was enslaved, even though he was the son of the white priveledge?

Voice and style: The whole chapter was written in a style that I was not familiar with before. I loved the word choice the author used to describe the slaves and the whites. He named the slaves tasked which means that they had to follow the tasks. This made the story of this novel sound very interesting and attractive where a reader would want to read further.