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Chapter 21
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in News of the World, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fatherhood and Masculinity
American Multiculturalism and Racial Violence
News and Storytelling
Childhood and Innocence
War and Reconstruction
Summary
Analysis
Captain Kidd and Johanna drive slowly north through Texas, stopping to give readings on the way. People recognize her as the former captive, repeating rumors that she had beaten an attacker named Almay to death with a bag of quarters. Still, everyone agrees she has “cleaned up quite nicely,” collecting fees for the Captain and learning to read.
While Johanna’s status as a captive had once been a stigma, now it’s a point of interest and even pride. She’s finding a way to live in Anglo-American society without hiding her roots.
Themes
By the time they reach Dallas, Mrs. Gannet has taken up with another, younger man. The “Indian Wars” are coming to an end as the U.S. military drives the Kiowa and Comanche farther West. In remote towns, the Captain reads of “the new world that had come about” while Texas was busy with the Civil War, full of new inventions and machines. When they reach the Spanish-speaking territories, the Captain reads his articles in Spanish. Later, they drive down to the gulf where “the former slave population was at last turning to their own lives.”
While a “new world” is forming in America, it’s important to remember that this period of growth coincides with—and, in fact, depends on—the forcible removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands. This passage juxtaposes American heterogeneity and potential with the violence and racism that underpins American society.
Themes
Johanna gradually becomes fluent in English, although she always retains a slight Kiowa accent. She loves their itinerant life, and never learns to care about the material goods so important to Anglo-Americans; like the Kiowa, she prides herself on being able to do without almost everything. She understands that “neither fashionable dresses nor bank accounts” can ever make life truly safe. Only courage is truly useful.
With Johanna’s influence, Captain Kidd feels immune to the anxieties that drive those around him. He orders newspapers from faraway countries and reads to his audiences about Eskimos and Australian Aborigines, as well as new discoveries in Africa. Still, with all his reading he never understands how Johanna could have assimilated so completely into Kiowa life in just four years of captivity.
Rather than having a patriarchal relationship based on power and control, Johanna and the Captain influence each other equally. It’s important that he learns from her Kiowa culture even as she adopts his Anglo-American customs.
Themes
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After three years, Olympia, Elizabeth, her husband Emory, and two children move to San Antonio, where they take possession of their mother’s family home and begin the process of claiming her farmland. Emory starts up a printing press of his own and Olympia eventually remarries. Captain Kidd stops wandering and settles down for good in San Antonio, where he advises Emory in his work. Johanna pretends “to be a white girl,” but she always seems envious about the Mexican women who wade and play in the creek. As she becomes a teenager, she eats dinner carefully and without relish. The Captain doesn’t know what to do to help her.
It’s interesting—and somewhat predictable, given his distant relationship with his daughters—that reuniting his family isn’t as blissful as Captain Kidd thought it would be. For both him and Johanna, the wandering lifestyle is satisfying in a way that relationships with their biological families—however positive—just aren’t.
Themes
One day John Calley, whom Captain Kidd had met in Durand, comes to pay a visit. When he rings the doorbell, he’s surprised to see a beautiful blond teenager answer. Stammering, he announces his intention to see the Captain and asks if she remembers him; but Johanna says stiffly she does not. After he talks to the Captain, John sits down at the piano to play some folk songs; soon, Johanna joins him to learn the tunes as the Captain stands by the window, looking out at the milkman. When John gets up to leave, Johanna invites him back for dinner.
It’s interesting that John Calley, heretofore a minor character, becomes Johanna’s romantic interest. He first appears as a rough character, familiar with frontier dangers and comfortable living outside the law. But he also has a deep curiosity about law and the structure of society, which make him an apt partner for a woman who doesn’t fit perfectly into her own.
Themes
John decides to stay in South Texas and gather cattle in the area, a dangerous but profitable business. After two trips he has made a good deal of money and asks Johanna to marry him. On the day of the wedding, Johanna sits nervously in her bedroom next to Captain Kidd. Addressing him as “Kontah,” she asks what “the best rules for being married” are. He lightly warns her not to scalp anyone or steal chickens, but says she will figure everything else out herself. Before going downstairs, she hugs the Captain tearfully and says he is her “curative waters.” Trying not to cry himself, he gives her his long-treasured pocket watch.
Even though the Captain is ostensibly warning Johanna away from her childhood behaviors, he’s also honoring their shared past. Johanna’s vulnerability before her adopted father is a testament to his emotional sensitivity, an attribute not usually associated with men in his era. By referencing the wagon’s “curative waters” slogan, Johanna emphasizes its importance as a site of stability and familial warmth.
Themes
After her wedding, Johanna joins John on his long cattle rides, returning to the wandering life she’s always yearned for. It’s years before they finally settle down. Meanwhile, the Captain spends his old age working on a Kiowa dictionary.
By marrying John, Johanna approximates her former life as much as possible within the confines of Anglo-American society.
Themes
Britt Johnson and his men are killed in a Comanche raid during one of their freighting trips. However, Simon and Doris raise six children, all musicians. The family travels around Texas bringing Irish dancing from town to town. The Horrells continue to wreak havoc in remote central Texas until they die in a shootout so legendary it’s written up in all the newspapers.
Brusquely relating the happy and unfortunate futures of many minor characters, the novel shows how opportunity, tragedy, and pure farce mingle closely together on the American frontier.
Themes
The church in San Antonio, called San Fernando, is renovated, but the bones of Maria Luisa’s ancestors still lie beneath the floor. The Kiowa are not buried in the ground but “in the stories of their lives, told and retold—their bravery and daring.” When he finally dies, Captain Kidd is buried with his runner’s badge from the War of 1812, because he has “a message to deliver, contents unknown.”
Captain Kidd’s burial with his badge emphasizes his conception of himself as a transmitter of information. Meanwhile, the novel’s lyrical evocation of different resting places demonstrates the poetic beauty of coexisting customs, even as cultural mixing in America often explodes into violence and tragedy.
Themes
