Previous
Chapter 17
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
In the morning, Maggie wakes to find that Virgil has brought Wayne home. Wayne tries to explain that John is Nanabush, but Maggie doesn’t believe him. She is furious to learn that Virgil skipped school again to visit his uncle. She shouts at him to get to school, and when he leaves, she turns her ire on Wayne. They argue, and eventually he backs down and leaves. At school, Dakota tells Virgil that she met John on the docks, and she gushes about the conversation they had. She confesses she is in love with John.
Maggie’s anger at Wayne and Virgil is the culmination of the tension that has simmered under the surface of the Second family since Clifford’s death. Maggie and Virgil’s complicated grief for Clifford is why Maggie took the job of chief and why Virgil started skipping school, and thus indirectly why the relationship between mother and son has grown more strained.
Themes
