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Chapter 57
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
Riding the boxcar, Odie is grateful for the companionship of the river and the moon. Eventually he falls asleep. When Odie wakes, the train has stopped. He runs from the railroad police searching the cars for vagabonds. Odie stops in a diner, intending to use the money Emmy had him hide in his shoe for food. Seeing Odie’s rough appearance and hearing that he is an orphan, another customer offers to pay for his meal. Odie is struck by the kindness of this stranger, and wishes the others were with him to share in its warmth.
Alone, Odie finds comfort in the natural world, recalling the kinship with the land that one-eyed Jack spoke about. His encounter with the kind stranger in the diner supports the idea that humanity itself is a vast community that, at its best, takes care of one another. Still, Odie aches for his found family, illustrating that without them, he feels far from the only sense of home he knows.
Themes
Odie takes another train south but falls asleep. When he wakes, the train has turned west and doesn’t slow down until night. Odie disembarks in another railyard and approaches two men who are seated around a fire. The men are clearly drunk, and Odie realizes he has made a mistake. The men grab Odie and take his harmonica, throwing Maybeth’s letter into the fire. Seeing the same look DiMarco used to wear, Odie knows they are going to sexually assault him. He takes the money out of his boot and threatens to burn it unless they give him his harmonica. The men acquiesce, and Odie runs after throwing the money in the fire. He hides in a boxcar, crying and missing Albert.
With only himself to rely upon, Odie loses his way. Furthermore, there is no one to rescue him from the men, whose theft of his harmonica and destruction of Maybeth’s letter symbolize the loss of all Odie’s hope. That Odie saves himself using the money Emmy told him to hide in his shoe weeks ago shows that family can provide support even from a distance. This event also implies that Emmy predicted Odie’s run-in with these two men when they first set out from Lincoln and took steps to protect him from their bad intentions.
Themes
