Debts and Atonement Theme Analysis

––It was the ugly side of chance. But as a civilized society, we ask that even those who have had an unintended hand in the misfortune of others pay some retribution. Of course, the payment of the retribution is in part to satisfy those who’ve suffered the brunt of the misfortune […]. But we also require that it be paid for the benefit of the young man who was the agent of misfortune. So that by having the opportunity to pay his debt, he too can find some solace, some sense of atonement, and thus begin the process of renewal.

But Emmett hadn’t given [Sally] much cause for expectations since he went to Salina. […] He hadn’t asked her to do a thing.

Was he grateful to discover she had chosen to do these things on his and Billy’s behalf? Of course he was. But being grateful was one thing, and being beholden, that was another thing altogether.

Emmett considered offering Jake an apology, but Jake wasn’t there for an apology. Emmett had already apologized to Jake and the rest of the Snyders. He’d apologized in the hours after the fight, then at the station house, and finally on the courthouse steps. His apologies hadn’t done the Snyders any good then, and they weren’t going to do them any good now. […]

––If we’ve got unfinished business, Jake, let’s finish it.

Jake looked like he was struggling with how to begin, like the anger he’d expected to feel––that he was supposed to feel––after all these months was suddenly alluding him.

In the course of our lives, [Sister Agnes] had said, we may do wrong unto others and others may do wrong unto us, resulting in the aforementioned chains. But another way to express the same idea was that through our misdeeds we put ourselves in another person’s debt, just as through their misdeeds they put themselves in ours. And since it’s these debts––those we’ve incurred and those we’re owed––that keep us stirring and stewing in the early hours, the only way to get a good night’s sleep is to balance the accounts.

A fresh start requires the cleaning of the slate. And that means paying off all that you owe, and collecting all that you’re due.

By letting go of the farm and taking his beating in the public square, Emmett had already balanced his accounts. If we were going to head out west together, then maybe it was time for me to balance mine.

[Ulysses] understood that the consequences of what he had done should be irrevocable. That is what had led him […] into the life of a vagabond––a life destined to be lived without companionship or purpose.

But maybe the boy was right…

Maybe by placing his own sense of shame above the sanctity of their union, by so readily condemning himself to a life of solitude, he had betrayed his wife a second time.

I felt a surge of tender feelings for the old man in a manner that made my hands sweat. But if the Bible tells us that the sons shall not have to bear the iniquity of the fathers, then it stands to reason that the fathers should not get to bear the innocence of the sons.

So I hit him.

––No, I don't put much stake in apologies. […] Like a settling of accounts. […] If it were only a matter of the movie, it could have been a switch for a switch. Eight minus eight and we’d be done. The problem is that you still owe me for the Oreo incident. […] it should count for something. Rather than an eight minus eight sort of situation, what we have here is more of an eight minus five. So I figure if you take three swings at me, that should make us even.

He was back at Salina. Back in that moment that he’d sworn he’d never think about again: taking Ackerly’s beating as the rest of us watched. It was the fire of justice that was burning through Townhouse now. The fire of justice that appeases the injured spirit and sets the record straight.

[O]f all the boys whom Emmett had known at Salina, he would have ranked Duchess as one of the most likely to bend the rules or the truth in the service of his own convenience. But in the end, Duchess was the one who had been innocent. He was the one who had been sent to Salina having done nothing at all. And he, Emmett Watson, had ended another man’s life.

What right did he have to demand of Duchess that he atone for his sins? What right did he have to demand it of anyone?

And it was a comfort to be doing this work, to be doing this work in Sally’s company without either of them feeling the need to speak.

Emmett could tell that Sally was ashamed as he was, and there was comfort in that too. […] the comfort of knowing one’s sense of right and wrong was shared by another, and thus was somehow more true.

Sitting together on a nearby bench were Woolly and Billy, smiling at the floor plan of the house in California. And there was Sally leaning over a pram to tuck in the blanket of the child in her care. And there by the flower cart was Sister Sarah looking wistful and forlorn. And right there, not more than fifty feet away, standing by the door of his bright yellow car, was Emmett, looking honorable and upright.

[…] I could hear the distant chiming of a clock. Only it wasn’t a clock, and it wasn’t distant. It was the gold watch that had been tucked in the pocket of my vest […].