Previous
Chapter 44
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Kind, Kindness, and Discrimination
The Power of Books
Hardship and Humanity
Change and Modernization
Autonomy and Interdependence
Summary
Analysis
After Jackson leaves, Cussy Mary is too excited to sleep. So is Honey. She reads to the baby, folds laundry, and tries to read her own book. Her mind is bursting with happy plans: teaching Honey to read with Jackson, introducing Honey to her patrons. The sound of approaching riders bring Cussy back to reality. Two miner’s mules enter the yard, dragging a stretcher behind them.
Just as it seems that Cussy Mary’s life is improving, the hardship and suffering of life in the rural Kentucky coalfields reasserts itself. It’s not immediately clear what’s happened to Pa at the mine, but it’s clearly bad.
Themes
Cussy runs into the yard and throws herself on Pa’s body, begging him to wake up, telling him that she’s going to marry Jackson. One of the miners dismounts and introduces himself as Howard Moore. He explains that Pa volunteered to help him “[pull] pillars” (mining the support beams of coal left to keep tunnels open) that night. Pa got trapped, and by the time they found him, he was nearly dead. Mr. Moore sat with him, talking and praying, until he passed.
Pa died because of the mine company’s cruel and inhumane disregard for the safety of their employees. In an effort to get every last lump of coal out, they ask the men to work in tunnels on the verge of collapse. Their inhumanity contrasts sharply with Pa’s generosity and concern for his fellow mine workers. In a way, he's allowed himself to be a miner’s sacrifice: his death means that Howard Moore lives. Since Jackson will now take care of Cussy Mary, Pa dies secure in the knowledge that she will be okay.
Themes
The coal miners always take care of their own. They set to work digging a grave for him in the family cemetery, and one miner always stays with Pa’s body to watch over him until he’s tucked “good ’n’ safe into the ground.” A few hours later, Jackson rides into the yard. He was in town and heard about the accident. The miners all chipped in for a coffin, and he’s brought it up for the burial. Soon after dawn, a preacher arrives, and they lay Pa to rest with the rest of the Blues.
Unlike the inhuman coal company, the coal miners know how to treat each other with respect and honor. Earlier, Cussy Mary worried that the miners asked Pa to represent them in union talks because he was Blue and therefore thought to be expendable. But their concern to make sure he’s properly buried shows that they saw Pa for who he was as a person, not the color of his skin.
Themes
