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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Motorcycles & Sweetgrass, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cultural Maintenance vs. Loss
Grief and Trauma
Colonialism and Land Use
Stories and Religion
Humor
Summary
Analysis
Maggie spends the day surveying her constituents about how the parcel of land should be used. Their suggestions range from culturally insensitive to absurdly impossible. She already has a headache by the time she leaves work to meet with Virgil’s teacher, who insists that Virgil needs to apply himself more. When she gets home, her sister invites her out to gossip about John. Virgil encourages Maggie to go out; he regards John as an illness “infecting his community,” and he hopes that his mother’s friends will make fun of him the way they usually make fun of men.
Maggie continues to serve as a steward of the land, even though she would rather let the land exist without human intervention. She also has to balance this task with her other responsibilities as chief and as Virgil’s mother, both of which are made harder by her late husband’s absence. Meanwhile, Virgil’s dislike of John has made Virgil more aware of his community: he is primarily concerned with John’s relationship with Maggie, but Virgil also views John as a broader threat to all of Otter Lake.
Themes
Once Maggie is gone, Virgil hears loud music blasting from the nearby beach. It sounds like traditional Anishnawbe drumming mixed with synthesizers, and the music calls to him so strongly that he goes outside and finds its source. He finds John dancing to the music in a style that Virgil feels he should recognize. Dakota also watches John, each cousin unknown to the other and to John. Virgil decides that he might be able to understand this strange man if he talks to another strange man, so he decides to visit his estranged uncle Wayne. On his island, Wayne too listens to the music.
John continues to evoke a feeling in young Anishnawbe people that they should recognize something about him, even though they do not. This suggests that, although these young people have been distanced from aspects of their Anishnawbe identity, that identity is still a core part of them. John’s musical tastes also represent yet another way in which the traditional blends with the modern.
Themes
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