Waterland, by Graham Swift Presentation by Hayden Seibert

Characters Tom Crick Henry Crick Dick Crick Marry Metcalf Lewis Scott Martha Clay Ernest Atkinson Helen Atkinson

Setting The Fens wetlands in England

Plot overview Tom Crick Is a history teacher He’s getting fired because the Lewis Scott has decided that the school no longer needs a history department The true reasoning behind him getting fired is that his wife Marry Metcalf kidnapped a child recently and Lewis doesn’t want to face the negative publicity the school might get if Tom stays a teacher Knowing that he will soon have to leave, Tom starts telling stories from his childhood during class

Plot continued During childhood, Tom lives with his father Henry Crick, his mother Helen Atkinson, and his brother Dick Crick in a lock keeper’s cottage on the river Leem Dick is somewhat mentally retarded but is talented at working with machines When Tom’s mother Helen is on her death bed, she gives Dick a key to a strange chest in the attic This causes Tom to start spying on Dick

Plot continued Tom discovers the contents of the chest one day when Dick sneaks off to the river after taking something from the chest Tom watches from a distance as dick opens a strange looking bottle of beer and drinks it all in seconds Tom’s curiosity leads him to research the family history

Plot continued He discovers that his mother’s side of the family, the Atkinsons used to be major brewers of Atkinson beer, and they built an empire around their early success With time, their business began to fail after a series of disasters and blunders Tom’s grandfather Ernest Atkinson attempts to restore the busines’s success by making a new ale called coronation ale for the coronation celebration of George V

Plot continued The coronation ale is extremely intoxicating and results in lots of drunkenness and confusion on the day of the coronation In the confusion the Atkinson brewery burns down Ernest becomes wracked with madness and sorrow and looks to his daughter Helen for comfort

Plot continued Ernest and his daughter Helen develop a relationship that results in the birth of Dick Helen becomes a nurse in world war I and falls in love with Henry Crick after nursing him back to health They get married and Helen gives birth to Tom Helen and Henry never tell Dick or tom that Dick was born out of incest, and that that is the cause of his mental retardation

Plot continued In the attic of the cottage where they live there is a chest that contains bottles of coronation ale, and journal entries from Ernest’s journal that explain Dick’s birth The key that Helen gave dick before she died was the key to that chest Since Dick has no reading ability he is unable to read the journal entries

Plot continued During his youth, Tom falls in love with a girl named Mary Metcalf They develop a relationship and Mary soon becomes pregnant At the same time, Mary attempts to have a relationship with tom’s brother Dick which results in Dick having feelings for her When Mary tells dick that she is pregnant he asks if it is his baby To protect Tom from his brother’s anger she tells dick that it is Freddie Parr’s baby Freddie Parr is one of Tom’s friends

Plot continued In his anger, Dick Murders Freddie Parr by convincing him to drink one of the bottles of coronation ale, then hitting him on the head with the bottle and pushing him into the river Freddie’s body gets stuck on the lock where The Cricks live Henry Crick must fish Freddie’s body out of the lock with a boat hook The hook slips and cuts into Freddie’s head The wound from the boat hook masks the bruise left from Dick hitting him with the bottle

Plot continued The coroner’s find Freddie’s death as accidental Tom begins to peace together Freddie’s death and realizes that he and Mary could be considered accomplices Under a lot of stress, Mary attempts to kill the baby that she is pregnant with Tom finds her jumping up and down violently to try and kill the baby

Plot continued Tom takes Marry and rushes her to the cottage of Martha clay, a well known master of old medicines and conductor of emergency abortions Martha removes Mary’s baby, but causes damage that will result in Mary not being able to have children in the future Tom finds the bottle that Dick used to hit Freddie and decides to investigate the chest in the attic He manages to find the key that Helen gave Dick and he goes to the chest and reads all of Ernest’s writings

Plot continued Tom decides that the right thing to do is to tell Dick about how he was born After Tom explains the situation to dick as best he can, dick rides away from the cottage on his motorcycle Henry and Tom try to follow him and find him on the dredger where he works Dick had taken the bottles of coronation ale, and was very drunk at this point

Plot continued Henry and Tom head out after the dredger on a small boat The call to Dick to come back, but before they can get to him Dick dives off the side of the dredger into the water Tom and Henry search for Dick for a long time, but he never surfaces

Plot continued Later in Tom’s life he becomes a history teacher and maries Mary Mary is in a good mental state, but eventually goes mad because of emotional scars from her early life with Tom Since her and Tom are unable to have children, Mary steals a child from a store one day, and claims that god told her to Tom realizes that his wife has gone mad, and drives her back to where she took the baby They return the child but are still at the mercy of the law Mary is then sent to live at a mental hospital, and Tom faces getting fired