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Water symbolizes God’s grace—God’s freely-given love and redemption. In Christianity, water is strongly associated with the sacrament of baptism, by which a person (whether an infant or an adult) is initiated into the church. The baptismal water symbolizes cleansing and forgiveness of sins by God’s grace. Wherever water comes up in Gilead, John, as a minister, is undoubtedly thinking about baptism on some level, even if he doesn’t explicitly name that association. Because the Iowa prairie is subject to drought, John’s delight in water also reflects his awareness that, like God’s grace, it’s a precious substance that appears as a surprising gift from above. So, sometimes, water appears in the novel as an example of the sudden joy to be found in nature (and, implicitly, God’s generosity in freely giving it). Once, John remembers watching a young couple walking through town together and the young man jumping up to grab a tree branch, which showered raindrops onto the laughing pair. He associates the shower with God’s blessing and wishes he’d paid attention to such moments more often, suggesting that the world is filled with such blessings, if one knows where to look. In another such example, while watching his son and his son’s friend Tobias hopping around in a sprinkler, he remarks that sane people should show such exuberance “when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.”
Rainy days also figure prominently in John’s memories—times when God’s grace could be seen clearly. One of John’s most poignant childhood memories was watching his father and other adults cleaning out a burned-down church while singing hymns in a warm rain. He associates that memory with affliction, and with the idea that suffering can, by God’s grace, purify, transform, and even sweeten people’s lives by removing extraneous things—rather like the waters of baptism. Much later in John’s life, there’s the memorable rainy Sunday when Lila walked into John’s church for the first time, and he fell in love with her. In this instance, water symbolizes the new life John is about to begin—a completely unexpected gift that transforms his years of lonely suffering.
Water Quotes in Gilead
The Gilead quotes below all refer to the symbol of Water. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Pages 86-94
Quotes
I believe that the old man did indeed have far too narrow an idea of what a vision might be. He may, so to speak, have been too dazzled by the great light of his experience to realize that an impressive sun shines on us all. Perhaps that is the one thing I wish to tell you. Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time. For example, whenever I take a child into my arms to be baptized, I am, so to speak, comprehended in the experience more fully, having seen more of life, knowing better what it means to affirm the sacredness of the human creature. I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect. That’s the pulpit speaking, but it’s telling the truth.
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Pages 94-99
Quotes
My point here is that you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience. Or perhaps it has no fixed and certain nature. I remember my father down on his heels in the rain, water dripping from his hat, feeding me biscuit from his scorched hand, with that old blackened wreck of a church behind him and steam rising where the rain fell on embers, the rain falling in gusts and the women singing “The Old Rugged Cross” while they saw to things, moving so gently, as if they were dancing to the hymn, almost. […] I mention it again because it seems to me much of my life was comprehended in that moment. Grief itself has often returned me to that morning, when I took communion from my father’s hand. I remember it as communion, and I believe that’s what it was.
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Pages 200-209
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I mention this because it seems to me transformations just that abrupt do occur in this life, and they occur unsought and unawaited, and they beggar your hopes and your deserving. This came to my mind as I was reflecting on the day I first saw your mother, that blessed, rainy Pentecost.
That morning something began that felt to me as if my soul were being teased out of my body, and that’s a fact. I have never told you how all that came about, how we came to be married. And I learned a great deal from the experience, believe me. It enlarged my understanding of hope, just to know that such a transformation can occur. And it has greatly sweetened my imagination of death, odd as that may sound.
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Get the entire Gilead LitChart as a printable PDF.
Water Symbol Timeline in Gilead
The timeline below shows where the symbol Water appears in Gilead. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pages 17-21
...getting to hold Angeline for a few minutes before she died. Boughton had named and baptized her before John got home. Otherwise, they would have named her Rebecca.
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...peace of an ordinary Sunday, “like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain,” full of quiet life. You just need to avoid trampling on it. That particular day...
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...future wife’s seriousness seemed almost like anger. He remembers how closely she watched as he baptized two babies that day. He noted her expression of “stern amazement” afterward. Six months later,...
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Pages 21-28
...families in a religious town, which shaped their behavior quite a bit. One day, they baptized a litter of skinny barn cats. One of the girls dressed the cats in a...
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Later, John casually asked his father what would happen if you baptized a cat. His father replied that the Sacraments must always be treated with the greatest...
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...Christian cat. A Baptist friend quipped that it should’ve been named Sprinkle. (He believed in baptism by full immersion, and the cats should have been grateful that John didn’t.) John still...
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Ludwig Feuerbach had some wonderful remarks about baptism, particularly the fittingness of water—a naturally pure and spotless substance—as a vehicle of the Holy...
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...of him. He remembers the young man jumping up and grabbing a branch, sending glistening raindrops showering onto him and the woman, and they laughed and ran. John found the scene...
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Pages 53-57
...He has loved this life—the feeling of laying his hand against a baby’s brow in baptism—and yet, every time he does it, he thinks of laying his hand on his dying...
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Pages 63-66
...Tobias jumping around in the sprinkler. It makes him think of how he loves to baptize people, though he sometimes wishes his way of doing it involved a little more “shimmer...
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...John felt more at peace regarding his brother’s soul when, after pouring a glass of water over his head, Edward recited Psalm 133 from memory (“Behold, how good and pleasant it...
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Pages 86-94
...comes to a person in a memory or over time. For example, each time he baptizes a child, he understands the mystery of the act a little bit better. He also...
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Pages 94-99
...the men search through the rubble, and everyone singing while they worked in the warm rain. He remembers eating a biscuit that had soot on it and thinking of “the bread...
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Pages 99-104
...are the very things that mean the most to people. He reminisces further about the rainy day at the burned-out church with the singing women and the ashy biscuit his father...
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Pages 185-191
John doesn’t sleep this night; he’s thinking about baptizing Jack. The plan had been to name Jack Theodore Dwight Weld. John liked that name,...
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...John realizes it isn’t actually true, and he’s relieved. But he does wish he could baptize Jack again, to really feel the sacredness of it. And John Ames Boughton really is...
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Pages 200-209
...the shallows of the river, when suddenly his grandfather appeared and threw a hatful of water over them; they stood there “shining like the apostles.” John thinks most of life’s transformations...
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...him, “an unworthy old swain with perfume in his hair,” that she wanted to be baptized—no one had made sure she was baptized as a child, and she’d been feeling the...
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So, John taught Lila the basic doctrines of the Christian faith and soon baptized her. He felt thankful that he hadn’t yet disgraced himself—he was 67, and yet he...
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Pages 217-232
Della was a teacher. One day Jack saw her walking home from school in a rainstorm with an armload of books and papers, and he picked up some papers for her...
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