Characters Let Us Descend Jesmyn Ward

Aza: The Storm-Borne Ancestral Guardian in Let Us Descend

Overview

Aza is a wind and storm spirit who claims to be the ancestral guardian of Annis’s female line. She first appears in Chapter 3 (“Line of Loss”) as a towering figure wreathed in lightning and fog, stating that Annis called her. Throughout the novel, Aza guides, tests, and sometimes abandons Annis, revealing herself to be powerful yet bound, devoted yet capricious. She embodies both the sustaining and the destructive forces of nature, mirroring the novel’s preoccupation with inherited trauma and the possibility of resilience.

Plot Role

Aza appears at critical turning points in Annis’s journey. She summons a deluge on the coffle, drives the storm that enables Annis’s escape from the sugar plantation, and later delivers her to a swamp clearing. In the New Orleans slave pen, she consults a farseeing spirit and commands Annis to surrender to a small white woman—a directive that leads to Annis’s sale to a sugar plantation. Aza also reveals that she walked with Annis’s mother and grandmother, linking Annis’s personal story to a lineage of suffering and calling. Her final attempt to pull Annis back to New Orleans as a priestess is rejected, and she departs in a tornado, leaving Annis to build her own life.

Motivations and Traits

Aza is motivated by a desire for worship, attention, and acknowledgment. She admits she is “not all-knowing” and relies on other spirits for foresight. Her power grows when people pray to her, and she is described as “giddy with her own godly allure.” She is inconstant: she leaves Annis for long stretches and returns only when she senses she is needed—or when it suits her. Despite her flaws, she genuinely attempts to protect Annis, though she cannot intervene directly to prevent suffering. She is bound by the same limits as other spirits, a fact that strains Annis’s trust.

Chronological Arc

  • First appearance (coffle) : Aza claims Annis called her and brings a violent storm. Annis is shaken and uncertain.
  • Journey south: Aza reveals she walked with Annis’s mother and explains that Mama Aza called her during the Middle Passage. She spares the ship because of Mama Aza’s persistence.
  • New Orleans slave pen: Aza disappears for days; when she returns, she consults a farseeing spirit and tells Annis she must surrender to the thin woman buyer. Annis resents her absence and her failure to save her mother.
  • Sugar plantation: Aza watches from a distance, urging Annis to flee north during a storm. Annis refuses, trusting instead to the earth spirits.
  • Escape and swamp: Aza propels Annis’s raft downstream and leads her to a ruined plantation clearing. After Annis discovers she is pregnant and refuses to return to New Orleans as a priestess, Aza turns into a tornado and departs for the ocean.

Relationships

  • With Annis: Complicated and often adversarial. Annis hates Aza for her inconstancy yet feels a reluctant gratitude. Aza attempts to mother Annis but fails because she demands devotion. Annis eventually declares herself her own, severing the spiritual dependence.
  • With Mama Aza (Annis’s grandmother) : Aza was first called by Mama Aza on the slave ship. She spared the vessel because of Mama Aza’s loud, insistent prayer. She later walked with Mama Aza through her life.
  • With Annis’s mother: Aza walked with her as well but could not prevent her sale or her violation. Annis confronts Aza about this failure.
  • With other spirits: Aza consults the farseeing spirit (Those Who Foretell) and respects the Water as all-knowing. She contrasts with She Who Remembers, a fire spirit who witnesses suffering but does not act. She is also distinct from the earth spirits, They Who Take and Give, who embody cyclical nourishment.

Key Decisions and Consequences

  • Telling Annis to surrender to the thin woman: This leads to Annis’s sale to a sugar plantation, a site of brutal labor but also the place where Annis forms bonds with Esther, Mary, and Bastian, and eventually escapes. Aza later claims this was the path to freedom.
  • Urging Annis to flee north in a storm: Annis initially hesitates, fearing recapture. After Mary and Esther drown, she does seize the storm to escape. Aza’s wind helps her build a raft.
  • Demanding Annis return to New Orleans as a priestess: Annis refuses, choosing to stay in the swamp and raise her child. Aza departs in fury. This decision marks Annis’s ultimate rejection of spiritual dependency and her embrace of self-determination.

Theme and Symbol Connections

  • Ancestral memory and lineage: Aza is the embodiment of the female line’s spiritual inheritance. She connects Annis to Mama Aza’s Middle Passage experience and to her mother’s suffering. See the ancestral memory theme page.
  • Forced separation and loss: Aza’s inability to save Annis’s mother mirrors the novel’s pattern of families torn apart. She represents the grief that accompanies that loss. Learn more about forced separation and loss.
  • Endurance through resistance: Annis resists Aza’s demands for devotion, asserting her own agency. This aligns with endurance through resistance.
  • Mother-daughter bond: Aza functions as a surrogate mother spirit, but Annis ultimately rejects her for a more self-defined path. The novel’s theme of mother-daughter bond is complicated by Aza’s limitations.
  • Spiritual descent and awakening: Through Aza, Annis descends into the underworld of slavery and rises again. The spiritual descent and awakening theme is enacted in Annis’s journey from call to refusal.

5 Book-Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Aza first appear to Annis during the coffle march?
Aza says Annis called her. In Chapter 3, after weeks of walking and loss, Annis is desperate enough to summon the spirit her mother warned her about. Aza appears as a storm figure, claiming she comes “in my own time, when I am called.”

2. What is the significance of Aza telling Annis to let the thin woman buy her?
Aza consults a farseeing spirit who predicts that this sale is the only path to freedom. Annis must “sink in order to rise,” mirroring the ancestors who were thrown overboard and transformed into storms. Surrendering to the buyer is an act of trust in Aza’s plan, though Annis feels it as a damnation.

3. How does Aza’s relationship with Mama Aza differ from her relationship with Annis?
Mama Aza called Aza unconsciously during the Middle Passage, and Aza spared the ship out of respect for her boldness. With Annis, Aza is more interventionist but also more demanding. She expects worship from Annis, whereas Mama Aza’s call was spontaneous and desperate.

4. Why does Annis finally reject Aza at the end of the novel?
Annis discovers she is pregnant and refuses to leave the swamp to become a priestess in New Orleans. She states, “I delivered myself,” acknowledging Aza’s help but claiming her own agency. Aza’s attempt to force her back triggers a tornado, but Annis holds her ground, declaring herself her own.

5. What role does the Water play in relation to Aza?
Aza describes the Water as the original spirit, all-knowing but silent. She admits she is not all-knowing and that only Those Who Foretell can read the Water’s ways. The Water is the source from which all spirits come and to which they return. Aza’s power is ultimately subordinate to this greater force.

For a deeper understanding of Annis’s complete journey, see the ending explained and the general Let Us Descend overview. For further discussion, visit the questions and answers page.