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Part IV: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (4)
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
Harvey tries to push Jacquie down onto the ground to take cover, but she insists on walking out of the booth to see what’s happening. She can hear the whizzing of bullets, and sees lots of bodies on the ground. Jacquie is determined to find Orvil. She wonders briefly if what’s happening is a “performance-art piece”—all the still bodies on the ground dressed in regalia make the scene look like a true massacre.
The fact that all of the wounded Natives lying on the ground in their full regalia makes the massacre at the powwow look like a massacre that might have taken place early on in the history of America’s colonization is almost a cruel joke, and makes Jacquie believe what’s happening isn’t even real.
Themes
Jacquie sees the shooters, and then quickly scans the bodies all around her, looking for the colors of Orvil’s regalia. She spots it, and sees him lying on the ground—she walks towards him, even though she knows she’s moving in the direction of the shooters. When she gets to Orvil’s body she puts her fingers to his neck—there is a pulse, and she screams for help. No one comes, and Jacquie lifts Orvil’s body and runs in the direction of the entrance. Outside, she spots Loother and Lony, and asks them where Opal is. Just then, Opal pulls up at the curb in her car, and everyone gets inside.
Though Jacquie has been absent for much of her grandsons’ lives, she is there in the moment Orvil needs her most—and rescues him from certain death in an act of love and redemption which reconnects her to her family.
Themes
