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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Firekeeper’s Daughter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Justice
Generational Trauma and Bigotry
Ceremony, Pride, and Healing
Love, Honesty, and Respect
Coming of Age
Family and Community
Summary
Analysis
Daunis wakes in the morning with Perry snuggled next to her and Pauline whispering loudly for pancakes. Daunis rolls off the couch to make pancakes and is relieved to see Auntie’s car in the drive. The twins are finished and in front of the TV when Art and Auntie finally come downstairs. Auntie avoids making eye contact with Daunis; whatever happened last night, it was important. But Auntie, clearly regretful, hugs Daunis when Daunis is ready to go. Later, Daunis tells Lily about the blanket party as they move valuables to safe spots at the big house. They hope that the woman feels safer now.
For now, Daunis defers to Auntie and doesn’t press her on what happened during the blanket party. In this sense, Daunis still respects Auntie’s authority and treats her like an adult authority figure; despite being 18, Daunis doesn’t see herself as an adult on equal footing with her aunt. As Daunis and Lily discuss the blanket party, they touch on the main point of the ritual: to make a wronged woman feel safe. Still, it’s worth noting that a blanket party doesn’t give a woman any legal recourse.
Themes
Levi drops the beer off around eight and then leaves to get his friends. Lily is clearly enraged; she says that this was supposed to be just a few friends, not a hockey party. When Daunis mentions that Jamie is coming, Lily tells Daunis to kiss him. Daunis begins drinking grappa and reminds Lily that Jamie has a girlfriend. Lily says that Daunis needs to kiss someone; TJ was two years ago. Then, she says she’s just upset because Levi makes everything about himself, and this night was supposed to be about them. Daunis reminds Lily that they’ll be away from Levi when they start college in three weeks.
Lily is way less accommodating of the hockey “gods” than Daunis is; Daunis may be more relaxed about it because Levi is her brother, and she loves him. Still, it’s interesting that Lily accuses Levi of making everything about himself, as this further develops Levi as a self-absorbed person. Lily also makes it seem like Daunis has had bad luck in love for the last few years. She sees Daunis moving on from TJ as the best way to change that luck.
Themes
Two hours later, Lily scolds Levi for playing music too loudly, and Daunis offers Jamie her bottle of grappa. She offers to give him a tour of the house, and a girl tags along. The girl is clearly an anglerfish—a wannabe hockey girlfriend; anglerfish bite their mates and fuse with them, and Daunis finds hockey girlfriends just as pathetic. Daunis gestures wildly at the house’s features, but she stops briefly in front of her, Mom, and David’s framed senior portraits. Realizing the girl left the tour, Daunis tells Jamie to be better than a tourist and to pronounce Sault correctly: it’s pronounced “soo,” not “salt.”
To girls in the Sault, Jamie represents a prime opportunity. There’s social currency to gain by being a hockey girlfriend, so Daunis realizes lots of girls are going to want to woo him and ignore that he already has a girlfriend. To some degree, Daunis is doing much the same thing (she also is developing a crush on Jamie), despite her distaste for hockey girlfriends. But since she sees the Supes more as people and less as gods, she can interact with him more normally than the other girls do.
Themes
Levi bounces up to Daunis and says he has a favor to ask of her: would she be Jamie’s Supe ambassador? Since Jamie has a girlfriend, it’d keep the “puck sluts” away from him. When Daunis growls at the slur, Levi says she and Jamie can go running together and she can show him around. He tells Jamie that Daunis was on the boys’ varsity hockey team, and she was the valedictorian. Daunis says this sounds like a setup, but Jamie says he’s helping her and avoiding catfights among the other girls. Plus, Daunis is a “total badass” like Teddie. Flattered, Daunis agrees to be Jamie’s ambassador.
Levi shares more background information that helps explain why Daunis doesn’t treat the Supes like gods: she also played hockey and was good enough to get onto the boys’ varsity team. He’s flattering her, and ultimately, it works: Daunis agrees to do what Levi wants her to do, even if she finds him annoying and his use of sexist slurs wildly offensive. Part of her agreeing, though, likely also has to do with her budding crush on Jamie.
Themes
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