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Chapter 16: Howie
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Five Little Indians, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Resilience and Redemption
Cruelty and Trauma
Family
Finding Home
Summary
Analysis
After bidding Howie goodbye, Clara heads to Mariah’s cabin. Mariah greets her with a marvelous feast. They talk about George and Vera and their babies—something Mariah encourages Clara to think about before it’s too late—and about Clara’s work with the courts. Clara says that she’s come to see her work the way Rose did. It’s still hurtful to experience prejudice from judges and other officials, but she’s proud of keeping “Indians out of jail” and helping them to make good lives for themselves. Including Howie. Or maybe especially Howie. She tells Mariah that she has feelings for him, but that they’re complicated by their shared residential school trauma.
Clara has come a long way over the years, and she finds a lot of meaning in her work as an advocate. But her life isn’t complete yet—and it won’t be until she follows through on her feelings for Howie. But this, like everything else in her life, is complicated by her trauma. Clara’s relationship with Lucy—like Kenny’s—is characterized by periods of intimacy and periods of separation. This points to one of the sources of Clara’s childhood suffering: the loss of Lily, whom she loved but wasn’t able to save. It’s clear that Howie wants a deeper and more permanent relationship with Clara, but for that to work, she must get over her the fear, anger, and guilt she feels when she thinks of Lily—and which makes her afraid of intimacy with others.
Themes
In the morning, Clara asks Mariah to help her get her mind and heart clear about Howie in the sweat lodge. She gives Mariah her offerings and Mariah prays over them in Cree. The two women spend the next four nights in the sweat lodge. After the first three visits, Clara dreams only about the abuse she suffered. But after the fourth night, Lily—healthy and resplendent in a beaded dress—appears in her dream. Lily honors Clara’s love, care, and protection, assuring her that she bears no blame for Lily’s death. Clara sees herself as a child, too, and in the dream, she embraces Lily happily.
Once Clara resisted the sweat lodge and what it represented. She’s come a long way since those days, but this doesn’t mean that healing is easy or automatic. The trauma she suffered is deep, and it isn’t easy to unwind. Still, Clara’s determination serves her well in this instance. She finds peace when she realizes that she bears no guilt for what happened to her—or others—in the school. She is nothing but a victim of others’ abuse and terror.
Themes
In the morning, Mariah instantly knows that Clara has finally found her peace. The rest of the visit passes uneventfully, full of long walks through the groves of poplar and birch trees that surround the cabin. At the end of the week, Clara returns to Vancouver. She tells Lucy she’s made up her mind: she’s going to make a life with Howie.
Mariah knows Clara as intimately as anyone; it’s necessary to have a family’s love and support, but nothing says that that family has to be made up of blood relatives. Having been loved and mothered through her grief, Clara is now ready to make a new family of her own with Howie.
Themes
