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Chapter 46
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
Missing the Schofields, Odie visits Hopersville. There, Captain Gray warns him that a sheriff, a man, and a woman came looking for him. Back at camp, Odie tells the others that Sheriff Warford and Mr. and Mrs. Brickman have found them. They plan to leave at first light. Mose does not know if he will join them. Odie feels his world is breaking apart and wonders if they will ever escape the Brickmans. In a dark moment, he longs for the predictability of Lincoln School. In the morning, Emmy asks Mose to come with them, and he agrees. Forrest gives them the names of some friends in Saint Paul who can help them. Forrest invokes the blessings of Creator on Amdacha.
The goodwill Odie has cultivated in Hopersville returns to him as Captain Gray’s warning, highlighting the inherent reciprocity of communities. The possibility of losing Mose as a family member is devastating to Odie, who cannot understand the depth of his friend’s despair. Odie longs for the simplicity of the past, indirectly highlighting how much he has undergone over the course of the story so far. Though Mose agrees to accompany the group, Odie feels his attachment to them is tenuous. On the other hand, Forrest and Mose seem closer, united by their common experiences as Native men.
Themes
