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Chapter 17
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
Jack and Albert return with supplies to craft a liquor still. Odie informs Jack of his neighbor’s visit. Jack confirms that Aggie and Sophie are his wife and daughter, but he says no more. Albert and Mose construct the still in the barn, where there is a broken cider press. Though Jack claims the machine fell apart, Odie sees evidence that Jack in fact destroyed it in a fit of rage. After dinner, Jack plays fiddle to accompany Odie’s harmonica. The man is like Faria: less frightening the more Odie gets to know him. Jack’s temper flares when Odie criticizes him for eating Sophie's pet goats after she left. He calls Albert “Norman,” a name Albert came up with as he is “[n]either boy nor man.” Odie considers Jack’s sadness.
By not running away and lying convincingly to Jack’s nosy neighbor, Odie seems to have earned some of Jack’s trust. Still, Jack’s unwillingness to talk about his absent family suggests the memory of losing them is very painful. The evidence of Jack’s violent rage on the cider press contributes to Odie’s concern that he may have physically harmed Aggie and Sophie. In the next moment, Odie considers how Jack, like the rat Faria, seems less threatening than he did at first glance. Through Jack’s rapidly shifting demeanor, the novel portrays humans as morally complex and contradictory beings, especially when they have suffered great hardship.
Themes
On the fourth day, Jack makes the boys paint the barn. Odie does not think Jack is a bad person, but rather that he has been visited by his own “Tornado God.” Telling them how he lost his eye in the Great War, Jack claims that humans are naturally selfish. When Odie argues, Jack breaks a bottle and declares that the moment a bad idea is conceived, it’s only a matter of time before a person follows through on it. Odie wonders what terrible things Jack has found himself capable of. Using a length of wire found in the barn, Odie constructs a mechanism to unlock the tack room from the inside. The boys wait for an opportunity to escape.
Odie’s reflections on Jack’s character further examine the lingering impact of trauma—here personified by the Tornado God. Odie implies that Jack’s occasional meanness is the result of the pain he still feels from his family’s abandonment. Jack’s claim that humans are selfish creatures who act on every terrible thought shows that he has given up seeking of community, assuming other people will always cause him harm. Grappling with this idea here and throughout the rest of the novel, Odie continues his journey to maturity.
Themes
Jack’s mood darkens that evening and he turns in without much conversation. Worried, Odie and Mose break out of the tack room to check on Emmy. Odie feels she means something more to Jack than free labor—perhaps she reminds him of Sophie, his daughter. Standing outside Emmy’s window, the boys see Jack drinking in the farmhouse and Emmy asleep in her room. Suddenly, Jack appears in the doorway of Emmy’s room, almost catching the boys at the window. Afterward, he leaves the house and walks into the orchard. Odie and Mose follow Jack and watch as he kneels by an oak tree and sobs into the dirt. Odie pities Jack, though he does not understand him.
Regardless of its true source, Jack seems likely to take his bad mood out on the children. Unable to show kindness to his own daughter, it seems likely that Jack sees Emmy as a stand-in for Sophie. This explains why he lets Emmy stay in the farmhouse and, in this scene, wistfully watches her sleep. This gentleness adds further nuance to Jack’s character. Jack’s emotional visit to the orchard suggests he is still struggling to accept the loss of his family.
Themes
