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The Waterjack
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
Barnes waits for Wood Mountain at a restaurant in the Powers Hotel in Fargo. When Wood Mountain arrives, Barnes tells him that the fight is off, and Wood Mountain presses his fingers together, trying to cloak how disappointed he is. Wood Mountain tells Barnes he saw Patrice on the train, and that, since he doesn’t have a fight, he might go down to Minneapolis to make sure she’s doing okay. Wood Mountain knows what he’s doing by wheedling Barnes like this. But he’s sick of Barnes taking an interest in Patrice and, from Pokey, Wood Mountain knows that Patrice is sick of it too. Wood Mountain tells Barnes he’s sure Patrice will be fine and that he plans to go home, but when he goes to the train station, Wood Mountain hears himself asking for a ticket to Minneapolis.
Barnes starts to feel acutely jealous of Wood Mountain, afraid that Patrice might like Wood Mountain more than she likes him. Wood Mountain intentionally pushes Barnes’s buttons, but he isn’t just interested in continuing the competition that Barnes seems to be waging with him. Instead, Wood Mountain also seems genuinely concerned, unlike Barnes, with Patrice’s well-being, and he boards a train to Minneapolis to make sure that she is doing okay.
Themes
