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Chapter 4
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
The next morning, the head boys’ adviser retrieves Odie and Mose from the quiet room. Not seeing Albert or Volz, Odie worries that the Brickmans found out about last night’s secret meal and have punished Albert and Volz as a result. He works a half day at Bledsoe’s farm before returning to watch the school baseball game. The entire school attends, including the girls, led by Miss Stratton, the music teacher. Odie finds Mrs. Frost and Emmy in the stands. Mr. Frost used to coach the baseball team. Mrs. Frost is furious at Mrs. Brickman for sending Odie to bed without dinner. Volz eventually shows up, but he has not seen Albert all day. Mose pitches a great game, but Odie is distracted, worried about his brother.
Odie’s assumption that Volz and Albert are being punished for showing him and Mose kindness points to the Brickmans’ general lack of compassion toward the students in their care. On the other hand, the baseball game indicates a persistent sense of community at Lincoln, even if it is just a cover for the school’s crueler aspects. Mrs. Frost, again, is one of the only adults able and willing to do something to alleviate the children’s suffering, even if it means standing up to those more powerful than her. Albert’s absence weighs heavily on Odie despite their frequent disagreements, suggesting brotherly concern.
Themes
After the game, Odie reads an adventure magazine in the dormitory. DiMarco enters and accuses a younger boy—Billy Red Sleeve—of “talking Indian talk” to himself. Billy is new, having recently come from another Indian school with even worse abuse. DiMarco ignores Billy’s denials, snatching the young boy’s corncob doll. He is about to take Billy to the quiet room when Odie intervenes. DiMarco ends up strangling Odie until Volz arrives with Albert and Mose. Volz threatens to beat DiMarco himself if he hurts either boy, and DiMarco leaves. Odie swears he will get revenge on DiMarco. Billy Red Sleeve hides his doll in his trunk, but the next day he disappears.
DiMarco’s accusation highlights how students were frequently prohibited from speaking their Native languages at Native American residential schools, whose goal was to supposedly “save” Indigenous youths by cutting them off from their own traditions and assimilating them to Western culture. In this way, the sense of connection between Native American children and their birth communities weakened, leaving them even more vulnerable to abuse. DiMarco’s violence is as uninhibited as it is unnecessary, suggesting that he does not fear the consequences of his actions because of his power as a white adult. Though Volz uses his own status to stop DiMarco, Billy’s disappearance is ominous, suggesting DiMarco has found a way to punish him.
Themes
