55 pages • 1 hour read
Natasha BowenSkin of the Sea
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Choices and Consequences of Duty and Responsibility
Duty and responsibility are key drivers for many characters in Skin of the Sea. Through the duty of the Mami Wata, Kola’s perceived responsibility for his village and siblings, and Esu shirking his duty as Olodumare’s messenger, Skin of the Sea explores how duty, responsibility, and choice are interconnected.
Since being made by Yemoja, the Mami Wata must collect the souls of those taken from their homes to return them to Olodumare. In the months she has been a Mami Wata, Simi has performed this duty, but when she saves Kola’s life, she defies the task for which she was created. In Chapter 7, when Yemoja tells Simi she broke Olodumare’s decree rescuing Kola, Simi thinks, “I may have saved Kola, but in doing so, I failed her” (55). Simi didn’t know it when she chose to rescue Kola, but her perception of her duty influenced her choice. It’s Simi’s responsibility to collect the souls of the dead, but she believes that saving a life is more important than saving a soul and, thus, incorporates saving Kola as part of her duty, even though it is not. Simi’s interpretation of her obligation to rescue creates difficulty for Yemoja. Yemoja is responsible for overseeing the Mami Wata, and Simi’s decision means Yemoja has failed. Choice and duty form a complicated web of responsibility here. When Simi chose to go above and beyond the call of duty, she relinquished her responsibility as a Mami Wata and defied the Yemoja’s demand that she only do as Olodumare ordered. Simi’s choice does not align with her duty, which leads to unforeseen complications. Further, Yemoja’s choices and responsibilities differ from Simi’s, forcing Simi to take on a new responsibility to make things right.
Like Simi, Kola takes responsibility for others. Kola’s younger siblings are twins; as such, they have mystical abilities that keep their land thriving and bountiful. By choosing to be responsible for their wellbeing, Kola takes on the duty to protect them and all they offer the village and surrounding area. When the twins go missing, Kola’s parents believe them lost and mourn their deaths, even though choosing to believe they are dead would let the rot in the land spread unchecked. By contrast, Kola does not give up his responsibility to keep the twins safe, and by rescuing them, he also saves the land and its people from starvation and disease. Kola’s choices and responsibilities align, which gives him purpose and allows him to uphold his duty.
While Simi, Yemoja, and Kola ultimately align or realign their decisions around their responsibilities, Esu ignores his duty for his own gain. Esu is the primary messenger to Olodumare, tasked with bringing the prayers of humans and other orisas to the creator. Recently, Esu has not done this, resulting in a breakdown of communication that Esu uses to his benefit. He does perform his duty because he does not want to, which creates uncertainty for those who pray to Olodumare. If people feel their prayers are not being delivered or answered, they may stop praying, which could cause Olodumare to stop caring about the people. Esu’s choice to shirk his duty symbolizes what happens when selfishness dictates decisions. Selfish choices to defy duty and responsibility hurt all who rely on those assigned to perform certain tasks.
The characters of Skin of the Sea respond differently to their given or perceived duties and responsibilities. When they make choices that affirm these duties or responsibilities, they and those around them benefit. When they defy a duty or obligation, the potential for suffering increases, and uncertainty around a task leads to unforeseen decisions and new responsibilities.
We Cannot Hide From Ourselves
The characters of Skin of the Sea have varying levels of comfort with who they are. Whether they struggle with identity or accept themselves does not change their essence, and their individual approaches to finding their true natures show how everyone must work to find peace with who they are. Through Simi’s struggle with her Mami Wata nature, Yinka’s feeling of transformation when she fights, and Issa’s comfort with who he is, Skin of the Sea explores how we can’t hide from our individual truths.
Simi is caught between two worlds. On the one hand, she believes in Yemoja and the duty of Mami Wata, but on the other, she feels as if she lost the life she had before. In Chapter 14, when Kola asks Simi about her home, she can’t tell him much because she doesn’t remember, and she’s filled with “this straining, this wanting to be someone else” (140). Simi doesn’t realize that this straining is actually toward her true self rather than something other than what she is. Simi believes she wants to be human again because the memories she recovers show her a time when she was content. Thus, she thinks of her Mami Wata nature as something that was thrust upon her. The final memory she recalls during the story is of accepting Yemoja’s offer to be a Mami Wata. Simi freely chose her Mami Wata nature, which means it is at least partly who she truly is. Her struggle with her Mami Wata nature begins when she develops feelings for Kola, suggesting that her true self consists of more than her physical being. She is both Mami Wata and someone who wants to experience love, and she cannot deny these seemingly opposing parts of herself.
While Simi struggles with her true nature, Yinka is still discovering all the parts of herself. Yinka’s discovery of Simi’s Mami Wata nature unlocks an understanding of herself she didn’t previously have. When Yinka is fighting, she feels a change, as if the act of battle transforms her into something different. In Chapter 22, the bultungin sense their blood runs in Yinka’s veins, which may explain the partial transformation Yinka feels. It is not revealed if Yinka has bultungin blood by the end of the book, but it seems likely that she does. Yinka may embrace this part of her nature in the sequel, allowing her to find her true self. Until then, her uncertainty about the bultungin and her true nature will keep her from learning who she is, but if she does have bultungin blood, nothing can stop her from finding it.
While Simi and Yinka struggle with discovering who they are, Issa is completely comfortable with himself. Unlike Simi and Yinka, Issa has been one thing all his life. Simi transitioned to something new before the novel's start, and Yinka feels something new awakened inside her, which means neither girl is just one thing. By contrast, Issa is comfortable with his yumbo nature, and his comfort lets him see the potential for others to find comfort too. Issa encourages Simi to tell the others about her Mami Wata nature. When they learn the truth without her permission, Issa urges her not to worry because they will accept her for who she is. Issa’s advice comes from the position of someone who knows and is comfortable with who they are, showing that once we stop hiding from ourselves, we no longer feel the need to hide at all.
Decisions Cannot Be Reversed
Esu is the orisa of the crossroads, and in talking about this, Simi says, “It’s up to the person which path they choose to take” (218). While Skin of the Sea shows the power of choices and consequences, specifically regarding duty and responsibility, it more broadly amplifies the idea that every choice is a path and that there is no going back once a course is set. Through Simi’s deal with Olokun, the bridge to Esu’s palace, and the battles the characters choose to fight, Skin of the Sea shows how decisions, once made, are final.
Simi’s deal with Olokun exemplifies how choices can feel both finite and inevitable. Simi asks Olokun for help because she fears being unable to stop Esu without powerful aid. In return for helping her, Olokun asks Simi to reside with him because he is alone in the deepest part of the sea. Simi does not want to do this, but she understands that stopping Esu is more important than her desires. Once she makes the deal, she cannot reverse it, meaning she seals her fate in return for giving the world a chance to choose its own path. While Simi cannot undo the deal she made, she may be able to make another choice to change her situation depending on the exact terms of the agreement, details that are not given by the end of the book.
While Simi’s deal with Olokun shows the seeming inevitability of a path, the bridge leading to Esu’s palace explores how making one choice often leads to unexpected consequences. The bridge tells a few stories about Esu, and to cross without retracting any part of the bridge, one must step on the images that tell the correct tale in the proper order. Simi uses her knowledge of Esu’s tale to work her way across the bridge with few problems. Part of the story involves choosing the type of shoe Esu wore to disguise himself as Olodumare, and while Simi knows the story itself, she is unfamiliar with such minute detail. Her uncertainty shows how we must sometimes make decisions without enough information. When she accidentally chooses the wrong shoe, part of the bridge retracts, and there is no way to extend the bridge again. Once Simi makes her choice, she must live with the consequences, and there is no retracting her choice to try again. While decisions may be made to mitigate the effects of a previous selection, the consequences cannot be undone.
More broadly, the storyline of Skin of the Sea relies on the characters making the best decisions with the information they have. When Simi decides to rescue Kola, she does so because she believes saving a life trumps collecting a soul, only to learn later that her choice has unlocked consequences she couldn’t have foreseen because she didn’t have all the information. Aboard the ship in Chapter 10, Simi trusts Oya with the details of her mission, and later, a storm created by Oya destroys the boat she and Kola use. Simi made a choice she believed was best for her mission, Yemoja, and Mami Wata. It’s never revealed if Oya destroyed the boat because she wanted to or because Esu told her to, but the reason doesn’t matter to Simi’s decision. Regardless of why Oya sent the storm, the boat was destroyed. These decisions and others made throughout the story symbolize the volatile and uncertain nature of decisions.
Choices cannot be reversed, and while we can always make new decisions later, the consequences of past decisions remain. We never know what a choice will lead to, and we make them hoping we have all the information we need. However, once a decision is made, the terms of the decision no longer matter, and we must deal with the consequences regardless of what we knew or thought we knew before.
