Crossing the River Study Guide

Dislocation and restoration

The feeling of loss and pain in the novel stems from one main thing: dislocation. Dislocation is the one thing that creates all the painful stories. One wonders what would have happened to these characters if slave traders hadn’t torn them from their homeland.

Nash never would have become Edward’s pet in America and never would have journeyed back to Africa to unsuccessfully fend off disease and later die. Martha never would have lost her husband and daughter. And Travis never would have died in Italy. All of these characters died in lands that were strange to them, suggesting that the characters were ill at ease in their new environments ever since they were taken from Africa. The narrator at the beginning and end of the text, however, is still optimistic, reasoning that his children will still reach the other side of the river – their true home – if they are determined and willing to survive.

Nash, Martha, and Travis all struggled and defied what was expected of them; they didn’t meekly accept their situations. Nash became so delusional in Africa as a missionary that he was almost like a white slave driver himself, forcing the natives to work for him and scoffing at their ideas of religion and cultural practices. Martha, on the other hand, looked for freedom on the WestCoast, and Travis fell in love with a white woman. All of these characters defied the expectation that blacks would live low, submissive lives and fulfill the desires of the white man. In this way, they were able to find the other side of the river and become rooted as the “seeds of new trees”(p. 2).

Contradiction of emancipation and restriction

The irony in Crossing the River is that though Nash, Martha, and Travis are all "free," they still are restricted in many ways. They each deal with their newly found freedom in different ways: Nash agrees to go to Africa as one in few educated and freed black men. Later, however, he becomes limited and restricted in his own view of the world– he sees things as a slave owner might toward the end of the novel. Freedom for Martha comes at the cost of her life as she escapes the Hoffmans in Kansas. Travis, whose story occurs after the Emancipation Proclamation, is technically free but is still bound by a white culture that refuses to accept his relationship with a white woman. Instead of freedom enhancing their world view, freedom impedes them and is one more obstacle that they must overcome before they can reach the far side of the river.

Christianity and its relation to morality and hypocrisy

Christians in Crossing the River are presented somewhat negatively. Many of Phillips' characters lack faith, and the majority of those that do believe act hypocritically.

For example, one of the main characters, Martha, gave up believing in God because she couldn’t “sympathize with the sufferings of the son of God when set against her own private misery” (p. 79). Martha, having lost her husband and daughter and everything worthwhile in her life, completely lost faith in everything, including religion. Martha’s owners the Hoffmans, on the other hand,were devout Christians and tried to get Martha to go to a “revival by the river,” where a minister tried to “cast light on Martha’s dark soul” (p. 79). Interestingly enough, the Hoffmans try to sell Martha when the family decides they want to move to California. They don’t even think twice about sending her back to Missouri, where racism and evil slave traders flourish. Their decision demonstrates a lack of strong morals despite their religion.

Joyce, Travis’ love interest, also does not believe in God. She expected God to listen to her after getting an abortion, and when he didn’t, she “left Christ” (p. 194). Joyce seemed to want some sort of reconciliation with her cold, distanced mother and hoped that religion could fill the gap between them. But when Joyce left church, her mother “left (her)” (p. 194).

The Hoffmans and Joyce’s mother (as well as Hamilton and Nash) all had the pretense of being good Christians. In reality, however, these characters' morals were anything but good. They all tried to force their beliefs on people that they deemed were below them. Phillips seems to say that it’s wrong to transplant people from their native country and then force a belief system on them that the so-called Christians don’t even follow themselves. The Hoffmans, Joyce’s mother, Hamilton, and Nash are all hypocrites. Martha and Joyce struggle to find their place in this forced system of beliefs, just like the Africans struggle to find their way in America or any other place they were forced to go once they’d been uprooted from their native land. Travis alone seems to be the one person who maintains Christian beliefs without becoming a hypocrite. When Joyce’s mother dies, he asks if he can say a prayer, and Joyce lets him. He never pushes Joyce to accept his religion. Travis is obviously flawed – as demonstrated by his affair with Joyce – but at least he never pretends to be something he’s not.