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Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sign of the Beaver, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Indigenous Knowledge
Colonialism, Land Rights, and Entitlement
Nature
Friendship and Respect
Coming of Age and Manhood
Summary
Analysis
Attean appears suddenly one morning with Saknis. Matt is concerned this means trouble; Saknis must know Matt and Attean weren’t doing much reading over the summer. Matt greets Saknis politely and then looks to Attean—and he notices Attean found his manitou. Attean looks taller and older, his hair is styled like his grandfather’s, and he carries a new rifle. Happily, Matt compliments the gun. Then, Saknis says it’s fall—winter will be here soon. He explains that his tribe is going north, and Attean won’t be coming to learn to read anymore. Matt’s father, he says, isn’t here yet and might not come. Matt is offended—until Saknis says that Matt should come with him.
While Matt notices many clues that Attean has found his manitou and formally come of age, the new rifle is the clincher. This continues to associate guns with adulthood and with manhood specifically—and in turn, that Matt doesn’t have a gun now highlights that he’s still a child. In inviting Matt to join the tribe and come north, Saknis shows that he genuinely cares about Matt as a person. He recognizes that the winter poses many dangers and challenges, and the last thing he wants is for Matt to perish here on his own.
Themes
Matt is shocked, but Saknis smiles and continues that Matt and Attean can be like brothers. For the first time, Matt allows himself to think about how anxious he is. However, this relief passes quickly, and Matt says that as much as he’d like to go, he can’t leave. His father won’t know where he went, and it’s up to him to protect the cabin. Saknis tries again to convince Matt, saying he'd happily have Matt as a grandson, but Matt insists he must stay. Even if his father can’t come, he’ll send word to let Matt know. Saknis shakes Matt’s hand and turns to walk away. Attean follows without a word. Feeling panicky, Matt wants to run after them and say he’ll go, but he splits logs instead.
On one hand, Matt wants to go: it would mean he’d get to become a part of a new family, and he’d have support and companionship with Attean’s tribe. However, Matt realizes that deep down, he’s loyal to his father and he can’t just leave all their hard work (the cabin and corn patch) without a word. This in itself is a very mature choice, and it’s not an easy choice. Saknis seems to see the maturity in Matt’s decision, as he doesn’t press the issue, like he might if he saw Matt as a child who inarguably needed a parent to care for him.
Themes
As he works, Matt thinks about the stories he’s heard of white men and women whom Native Americans captured. Many of those people chose not to return to the “white world” when they got the chance, and now, Matt knows why they’d choose that. Attean and his family have been kind to Matt, and Matt knows they’d be kind to him had Matt chosen to go. Thinking of the happy village, Matt wonders what he’d choose now if he'd been raised in the village.
At the time the novel takes place, “captivity narratives” were popular, and this may be what Matt is referring to. It highlights how much Matt’s view on Native Americans and their culture has changed in the last few months that he can acknowledge that he probably could be happy living with them. Native Americans are no longer scary—they’re people, just like Matt.
Themes
Still, Matt knows it’s not at all the same to choose under his current circumstances, though he’s proud Saknis invited him. Matt also knows that he’d never be proud to be a hunter like Attean will be, and he knows that he feels connected to his family just as Attean feels connected to his. And this land is the land where Matt’s father built a cabin. It also belongs to Matt, and Matt can’t run away from it. Mostly, what bothers Matt is that Attean walked away without a word. Did Matt offend Attean, and did Attean want Matt to be his brother? Sure, Attean is a man and a hunter now; his carefree childhood wandering the woods with “a white boy” is over. But it would’ve been nice to shake Attean’s hand.
Here, Matt begins to articulate the idea that because he and Attean have different ideas of what it means to be a man, neither of them would be able to just slip into the other’s culture. Ideas of masculinity are so tied to their individual cultures that finding fulfillment in a different culture feels next to impossible. Matt also acknowledges how much he’s come to care about and respect Attean. This is one of the reasons why he wishes Attean had shaken his hand: it would show him that Attean respects him in turn.
Themes
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