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Chapter 50
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
Gertie’s dinner service starts promptly at five o’clock. This evening’s offering is lentil soup, and although she claims not to offer charity, Odie notices no one goes away hungry. He and the others deliver food and clear tables. Afterward, they eat sandwiches, and Gertie commends their hard work. Her other employees are currently in jail, and she offers to pay them all a dollar a day plus room and board to work for her for two weeks. The children agree. Truman and Calvin return with a prospective job towing grain to Cincinnati, if they can get the boat fixed in time. Gertie doubts that Truman will be able to make nice with Wooster Morgan in time.
Gertie’s dinner services are her main way of supporting her community. She is also willing to recognize and reward hard work, and this illustrates how communities build themselves up by noticing and utilizing the individual contributions of its members. In this light, her open distaste for Truman suggests his contributions to the community are less helpful and possibly more self-serving.
Themes
John Kelly, the boy from the river, rushes into Gertie’s. His mother is having her baby and needs help. Despite not knowing anything about childbirth, Gertie agrees to help, bringing Odie along. She sends the boys to rouse the doctor, calling John Kelly Shlomo—his real name, apparently. The doctor follows the boys to the duplex, where Odie can hear John Kelly’s mother, Mrs. Goldstein, screaming in pain. He plays cards with John Kelly through the night until Gertie emerges. The baby was breech, but he and his mother survived. Gertie asks Odie to help John Kelly on his paper route that morning. John Kelly calls Odie a ”mensch,” and Odie feels they are best friends already.
That John Kelly comes to Gertie for help with birthing his sibling before an actual doctor demonstrates how much Gertie’s community relies on her. Like Odie, John Kelly goes by a fake name. The implication is that his real name—which indicates his Jewish heritage—may be dangerous to claim in certain contexts. It seems Gertie brought Odie along, not to help with the birth, but to keep John Kelly company while his mother is in pain. Gertie clearly knows the needs of her community. She even considers that John Kelly will need help on his paper route after the long night before it crosses the boy’s mind.
Themes
