47 pages • 1 hour read
Graham SwiftWaterland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 51-52Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 51 Summary: “About Phlegm”
Tom elaborates on the properties of the bodily substance the Cricks possess, the “ambiguous humour”—phlegm. Its nature is contradictory—simultaneously advantageous and harmful—and requires expelling or it will damage the body. Ancient traditions suggest that phlegm should “be remedied by infusions of strengthening liquors” (344) like alcohol.
Chapter 52 Summary: “About the Rosa II”
Tom and Henry find Dick. He is getting drunk and has started the dredger, the Rosa II, on the Ouse River, which is “not like our little old Leem. It’s like a sea” (353). After Henry breaks down while telling the skipper, Stan Booth, that Dick is Freddie’s killer and Henry’s son, Tom, Henry, and Stan set out to retrieve Dick. Henry yells to tell Dick they will save him, but Dick dexterously dives into the water and is “Gone.” Stan demands an explanation, and all that is left of Dick is “Obscurity. On the bank in the thickening dusk, in the will-o’-the-wisp dusk, abandoned but vigilant, a motor-cycle” (358).
Chapters 51-52 Analysis
The book’s many stories end in Chapter 51. Tom describes phlegm and why it is necessary to drain it to achieve healing—a metaphor for the value in releasing the past to gain clarity. Its presence here, after Henry’s promise to tell the whole story, reinforces the cathartic aspect of confession, which allows healing to occur.
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