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Part IV: Daniel Gonzales (2)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in There There, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cultural Identity vs. Personal Identity
Storytelling
Interconnectedness, Coincidence, and Chance
Generational Trauma
Summary
Analysis
Jacquie and Harvey get to Oakland the night before the powwow and stay in separate rooms at the same hotel. The morning of the powwow, Jacquie wakes just before dawn and watches the sunrise. Later, she and Harvey eat breakfast together at the hotel, and Jacquie asks Harvey if he’s nervous to emcee the powwow. Harvey says he isn’t—he does his best thinking out loud, and sometimes, his announcing even feels “like a prayer.”
Jacquie is nervous about attending the powwow and returning to the place she’s abandoned for so long, but for Harvey, the event is a chance to connect socially and spiritually with his community.
Themes
At the powwow, Jacquie sits next to Harvey in the sound system booth. She wonders aloud if their daughter will be there—she would be, she tells Harvey, about forty-two years old. Jacquie absentmindedly looks down a list of dance competitors, and freezes when she sees Orvil’s name on it. She takes out her phone and texts Opal.
As the far-flung but intimately connected individuals attending the powwow begin to converge, the narrative momentum picks up, and it becomes clear that everyone’s paths are about to cross in a cataclysmic way. Because of the nonlinear narrative, it’s likely that Jacquie’s text to Opal is what brings Opal to the powwow in the first place.
Themes
