Essay: Caleb's Crossing - Geraldine Brooks

Caleb's Crossing (2011)

Prompt: In what way is Geraldine Brooks' Caleb's Crossing the story of Bethia's crossing as well?

Although Caleb’s Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks, mainly features a Native American man’s cultural assimilation and journey to graduate from Harvard, readers cannot reflect upon Caleb’s crossing without first noting the crossing of the narrator, Bethia. As the Mayfields pull Caleb into their English culture, Bethia is increasingly drawn into Caleb’s world as well. Bethia begins her transition into Wampanoag culture at a young age, when she accidentally eavesdrops on a Native American teaching her father Wampanaontoaonk, then learns the language herself. This skill catalyzes her relationship with Caleb, whose friendship with her is a two-way street, regarding the sharing of knowledge. When Caleb tells Bethia his name is Cheeshahteaumauk, she christens him “Caleb”, which represents a milestone in his crossing; then, Bethia is also given a new name, “Storm Eyes”, which indicates a benchmark in her own crossing.

As Bethia shapes Caleb’s cultural transformation by explaining to him the English language, church, and etiquette, Caleb reciprocates and teaches her his Wampanoag skills, traditions, and religion. She recounts: “... I followed this wild boy hungering after his knowledge of the island-- his deep understanding of everything that bloomed or swam or flew… Day following day, I grew in knowledge of the island, as we foraged in one place more remarkable in prospect or abundance than the last” (24-25). Bethia learns to value Wampanoag skills during her friendship with Caleb, just as Caleb grows to appreciate English inventions.

Her adolescence is marked by two sides of herself: a proper English self in front of her parents and her brother, and a wild and free self displayed in the presence of Caleb. This eventually culminates into the blending of both: during a journey with her brother, Makepeace, into Wampanoag territory to claim a beached whale, Bethia is bewitched by the tribal dancing. She loses the boundaries within herself: “Slowly at first, my limbs found the rhythm. Thought ceased, and an animal sense drove me until, in the end, I danced with abandon. If Satan had me in his hand that night, then I confess it: I welcomed his touch” (32). At this point, Bethia has succumbed to her desires, and despite her father’s teachings, she has willingly participated in a pagan ritual. By the end of Caleb’s life, Bethia fully embraces Wampanoag traditions and seeks help from Caleb’s uncle, Tequamuck, the antithesis of her own father, to save him: “... I brought my lips to his ear and whispered to him the last of the words that Tequamuck had given me” (298). As Caleb lies in his deathbed, Bethia further demonstrates the completion of her crossing by admitting that she trusts spiritual powers of a pagan healer.

Additionally, Caleb’s harsh journey into the adult world parallels Bethia’s coming of age. As a story that spans from Bethia’s twelfth year to her death, Caleb’s Crossing shows the reader Bethia’s inevitable maturing and gaining of wisdom. Her transition into adulthood is marked with the deaths of her family members; just as Caleb loses his father, brother, and tribespeople to disease, Bethia loses her mother, sister, and father to disease and drowning. These events shape Bethia into a more cynical, understanding adult. Whereas during her adolescence, Bethia believes her sins cause punishment in the form of death of loved ones, stating “I killed my mother” (5), and “I saw more punishment for my idolatry” (116) about her sister’s death, as an adult, she realizes that good and bad are not black and white: “To be sure, father and every other minister in my lifetime has warned that Satan is guileful and adept at concealing his true purpose. But since that day I have come to believe that it is not for us to know the subtle mind of God” (295). These thoughts demonstrate that through hardships, Bethia has crossed into a wiser and more reflective adult.