64 pages • 2-hour read
The Water Keeper
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Themes
The Healing Power of Love
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, sexual violence, child sexual abuse, child abuse, and physical abuse.
Many of the characters in the novel have experienced trauma and seek ways of healing. Murph, Summer, and Ellie all experience extreme grief, regret, and heartache, which leaves them feeling vulnerable and frightened of emotional intimacy. However, through their connections with one another, they experience the healing power of love.
The romance between Murph and Summer conveys the role that romantic love plays in healing. They share their histories and get to know each other. Although it is clear that Murph is physically attracted to Summer, he remains wary of taking a chance on a relationship after what happened with Marie. As he grows closer to Summer, he begins to question whether he is capable of loving again. At the end of the novel, the two finally pursue their romantic feelings, with both insisting that the other’s past traumas do not impact how they feel. As Murph looks in on Summer in the novel’s final moments, he sees that she is finally happy and beginning to heal from what she has been through. Similarly, Murph commits to letting Summer be the “keeper” of his heart, finally moving past his heartbreak over Marie’s death.
The human connections and friendships in the novel also emphasize the importance of love for others. Murph allows Summer, Clay, and Ellie to join him on his boat during his search for Angel. The coalition that he forms is varied, with a middle-aged woman, a young girl, and an older person of color, yet they each bond through their journey and begin to heal through their friendships with one another. Clay also intervenes during Murph’s final fight with one of the antagonists, showing that he is willing to risk his own life to help his friend. The novel’s final moments show Ellie and Summer happy together in their cabin, with Clay joining Murph on his next mission. Through Freetown, these characters finally find a place of belonging and healing and do so together.
Bones’s advice to Murph encapsulates the novel’s message about love best. He tells Murph, “We don’t love because people love us back. We love because we can. Because we were made to. Because it’s all we have. Because, at the end of the day, evil can take everything save one thing: your love” (263). Despite the evil seen in the novel, there is one solution: spreading love and healing. In finding love and connection through both romantic and platonic bonds, the characters each find the strength to move forward in their lives at the novel’s close.
The Lasting Impact of Trauma
One uniting characteristic of the characters in The Water Keeper is their history of trauma. With some characters, like Murph, who is still healing even years later, Martin emphasizes the continuing impact that trauma has on people, with healing represented as an ongoing process.
A prevalent internal conflict in the novel is the feeling of being “unworthy.” The idea is first introduced in the character of Marie, who felt “unworthy” of Murph before their wedding due to her sexual abuse at her father’s hands. Casey echoes this sentiment, explaining to Murph in the hospital that she feels as though she will never be loved again after what she went through. This sentiment is then echoed through Summer, Murph, and Marie again, each of whom feels as though their past has somehow “broken” them and made them incapable of healing. However, throughout the novel, each of these characters learns to heal themselves, thereby opening themselves up to be loved again.
For example, after Murph loses Marie, he suffers from both a fear of “giving his heart” to anyone else and a feeling that he is unlovable because of the life that he leads (332). Similarly, Murph’s list of names and his tattoos metaphorically represent the impact that his work has on him. As Summer asks about each name, he is able to recite who they were, what happened, and where they are now. As Murph emotionally carries the burden of fighting evil, he physically carries it on his back and on the wall of his home.
The process of recovery from trauma often takes place in Freetown, which is an entire community dedicated to recovery. Once Murph and his team have freed the kidnapped women and children, their help and support does not end there; instead, they have a community waiting for them. The people who go there—including the primary characters at the novel’s end—begin to move past what they have experienced. Freetown serves as a metaphorical representation of the need for time, space, and support in the journey of healing from trauma.
Despite the dark subject matter, much of the novel has a hopeful, optimistic tone. While Murph and the others search for Angel, they find comfort and support in each other. At the novel’s conclusion, Murph sees the happy family that Angel, Summer, and Ellie have built together. In this way, the novel conveys the lasting effects of trauma while also giving hope that they can be overcome.
Valuing the Individual in the Fight Against Evil
The Water Keeper explores the idea of modern enslavement through human trafficking. The antagonists in the novel kidnap dozens of young women and girls each day, objectifying them and trafficking them to the highest bidders. Additionally, the individuals who work in government agencies and nonprofits to combat these crimes are largely unrecognized. The Water Keeper depicts both the survivors of human trafficking and Murph’s efforts to save others, emphasizing the importance of valuing the individual in the fight against evil.
Murph regularly risks his life to save the individual lives of those caught up in trafficking. Although he has the backing of an unidentified government body—and, with it, unlimited resources, money, and supplies—he is the one who puts his life on the line each time to save young women and children. As Summer looks at his back, she notes not only his tattoos but also the scars from years of putting himself in danger. The bullet holes in his back represent both the physical and emotional scars that he carries. In the novel’s climax, as he fights on the yacht and then fights Angel’s kidnapper, he repeatedly notes how much blood he is losing, how much pain he is in, and how “exhausted” he is. Despite this, he continues to fight, leaving the medics to pursue the kidnapper, and then continuing on to save Ellie. Murph’s character thus represents all the people who fight against trafficking.
The novel also spotlights the survivors of human trafficking, emphasizing that behind the statistics are individual people. While the novel shows the experiences of Summer and Angel, there are also several other trafficking targets whom Murph saves and speaks with about their experiences. Casey, the woman who named the town “Freetown,” and the girls he saves off the yacht are all given a voice in The Water Keeper. Their individual struggles and traumas are conveyed, as well as the healing process that they must undergo after they are freed. The names on Murph’s back emphasize their identities, conveying the importance of their individuality. Conversely, the villains in the novel are given no names, emphasizing the importance of identifying and connecting with the survivors instead of glorifying the perpetrators.
In the final moments of the novel, Murph must choose between staying with Summer or looking for the new trafficking target whom Bones has identified. His decision to start his next mission emphasizes the novel’s underlying message about the importance “of the one” over “the many” (145). Through Murph’s final choice, the novel reinforces the sense that Murph’s mission is driven by the sense of each individual person’s worth.
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