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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Night Watchman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Solidarity, and Community Action
Oppression and Supposed Good Intentions
Humor and Pain
Sex, Violence, and Gender
Agency and Exploitation
Summary
Analysis
If Arthur V. Watkins had been a boxer, which he wasn’t, he would have been a brawler, surprising for someone who looks so “ideal-looking” and respectable. Joseph Smith and early Mormons tried to kill all Native people on their way across the country. Arthur V. Watkins, on the other hand, uses the power granted by his office to achieve the same thing, and he doesn’t have to get “his hands bloody.”
Arthur V. Watkins might be “ideal-looking” and “respectable,” but this chapter points out that even though he won’t get his hands bloody, he is every bit as violent as those who killed Native people before him.
Themes
