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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Tender Land, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family, Community, and Home
Hardship, Injustice, and Compassion
God, Fate, and Choice
Coming of Age and Personal Growth
Storytelling, Music, and Hope
Acceptance and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Odie feels betrayed by God, describing him as unpredictable and cruel. While Volz retrieves his car, Odie takes paint from the carpentry shop and scrawls a new message on the water tower. Afterward, Volz drives the children to the Frost’s farm. Seeing Emmy looking at her home and the family photograph, Odie promises they will never leave her. Volz sends them off with blankets and water. He is not worried about Mr. Brickman, since he can also blackmail him. The children pile into the canoe and set off down the river. Volz calls out his hope that God will watch over them, but this is not the God Odie knows. His message on the water tower reads “God is a tornado.”
The unfair circumstances that lead Odie to flee his unhappy home drive him to reject God in the same way he feels God has rejected and failed to protect him. Instead, Odie turns his attention to the found family of Albert, Mose, and Emmy—all of them orphans who have equal need of community. Assuring Emmy that he will never leave her alone, Odie recognizes the importance of relying on one another for comfort and protection. Odie’s final message to Lincoln betrays the bitterness he feels toward God, once again referencing his uncaring cruelty and destructive tendencies.
Themes
