The Devil and the Dark Water

Content Warning: This guide contains discussions of emotional and physical domestic abuse as depicted in the novel and uses outdated language to depict Hansen’s disease, the illness formerly known as leprosy.

Turton uses elements of the mystery genre to explore the relationship between good and evil. He uses the technique of misdirection to give the impression that some characters—Sammy and Sara for example—are unambiguously good, while others—like Haan—are unambiguously evil. He then subverts these expectations by revealing the characters’ secret ambitions and plans. As a result, he presents the relationship between good and evil as a blurred line—with elements of both found within all characters. This pattern of characterization suggests that good and evil are not innate or objective qualities—rather, external factors like wealth, power, and desire have the tendency to corrupt people, causing them to commit acts that, even if seen as “good” from their perspective, contain elements of “evil” from the view of others.

One character who demonstrates this dichotomy is Jan Haan. In his first introduction in the story, Turton writes that “Thirteen years ago, he had purchased the village that had stood here on behalf of the United East India Company. No sooner had the natives signed the contract than he’d put a torch to it, using its ashes to plot out the roads, canals, and buildings of the city that would take its place” (3). As such, he becomes the embodiment of the evil that the United East India Company represents in its pursuit of profit above all else. He abuses Sara physically and emotionally, and he even admits he married her with the intention of treating her cruelly to punish her family. However, as the reader learns of Haan’s relationship with Arent, it is clear that Haan was not always evil. He saved Arent from his mother and raised him, even giving him money and a position in the military to help him succeed. By examining the reactions to Haan’s death from his family and Arent, the two parts of Haan become clear. His wife does not even mourn his loss, realizing quickly that she feels only “pity” for his wasted life. Only Arent truly grieves Haan’s death. Even though Haan “turned his back on the ideals he’d espoused to Arent as a boy, […] he’d loved him. And that love endured. Whether it was earned, or worthy, or right, it sat at the heart of him, and, try as he might, he couldn’t dislodge it” (399). These dueling feelings within Arent exemplify the way that both good and evil exist within Haan, even if he is clearly evil on the surface.

Throughout the novel, Arent views Sammy as the exemplar of “good.” He believes that Sammy solves crimes not just for the money, but to help those in need. Arent explains that “Sammy wasn’t like anybody else. Wealth, power, and privilege didn’t matter to him. If he thought somebody was guilty of the crime he was investigating, he’d accuse them. Sammy was what Arent hoped the entire world could be” (228). For most of the novel, as Sammy is locked in his cell, the reader has only Arent’s view of Sammy by which to form a judgment, thereby presenting Sammy as the representation of pure “good.” However, as the mystery is solved, the reader learns that Sammy is at the root of the problems on the Saardam and that he does so for personal revenge. This revelation makes Arent realize that “Sammy believed slaughtering innocents was a fair price to kill a powerful man. He was no different to the kings Arent had fought for” (417). In other words, the damage that Sammy caused is justified in his mind, blurring the line between is good and evil.

Similarly, several characters in the novel remark on Arent’s goodness. Sammy believes that he is “actually an honorable man. Probably the only one [he’d] ever met” (476), while Sara falls in love with Arent for his good deeds. As Sammy and Creesjie try to justify their actions on the Saardam, Arent is adamant that the price they paid for revenge was not worth it. As such, Arent becomes another model of good in the novel, recognizing evil for what it is and refusing to succumb to it. However, in the last lines of the text, even this characterization of Arent is turned on its head. As Sara proposes that the five of them group together to continue the Old Tom myth and bring down more powerful men, Arent agrees with her and tries to convince Sammy to join them. This change within Arent reflects the dichotomy that exists even within him. Having lost his naïve belief in unalloyed good, he readily agrees that good ends can justify unethical means.

Each of these characters—Haan, Sammy, and Arent—is presented as complicated, with elements of both good and evil within them. Contrary to Arent’s worldview, no one in the novel is strictly good or strictly evil. Human character is always ethically muddled. Some characters commit both good and evil acts, while others seek to justify their evil actions by pointing to their morally desirable results.