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Chapter 45
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
After Maybeth leaves, Odie wanders aimlessly back to camp. Mose has returned, but he looks even more miserable than before. Albert and Odie bicker about the money Odie gave away, which provokes Mose into throwing a rock at them. He signs that they are selfish and only think of themselves. Odie does not recognize this Mose. Emmy asks what Mose sees, and Mose replies that he sees his own history. Angrily, he leads the others out of the camp. Suddenly Emmy says, “They’re all dead,” the same phrase she said during her last fit. Mose has brought them to the memorial for the Sioux who were murdered in 1862
Having invested so much energy in Maybeth and the Schofields, Odie returns to find his own community in disarray. In accusing Albert and Odie of selfishness, Mose points out that even disempowered people can do harm when they are self-absorbed. Only Emmy asks Mose what he sees, and her question seems to open a floodgate of individual suffering. Emmy’s remark when they reach the memorial suggests that she did indeed witness the murdered Sioux back on the island.
Themes
Having researched the Sioux at the library, Mose tells his friends the story. By 1862, most the Sioux’s land in Minnesota had been stolen. Starving and desperate, some of the Sioux waged war on the settlers, resulting in hundreds of casualties. The Sioux who were left were rounded up, regardless of their participation in the conflict, and put on trial. On the day after Christmas, 38 men were hung simultaneously while a crowd of white people cheered. Amdacha, Mose’s ancestor, was one of them. Odie weeps along with Mose, horrified by the guilt and his own ignorance. The others flee from an approaching police car, but Mose remains by the memorial, weeping.
Unbeknownst to his friends, Mose has delved into the history of his people—and, by extension, his own identity. Not only does Mose discover that his ancestor was murdered by people who look like his friends, but that those same friends have been too wrapped up in their own concerns to ask Mose about himself. This leaves Mose feeling incredibly alone, having lost connection with every family he may have claimed. Here, the novel highlights the need for community members to support one another through times of intense personal growth, which can elicit its own kind of suffering, as Mose experiences in this scene.
Themes
