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Chapter 62
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
Agitated, Aunt Julia paces as she explains how she became pregnant accidentally. Not wanting to raise a child in the world of sex work, she asked Rosalee to care for Odie. She does not know who Odie’s true father is. Aunt Julia received letters every year from Lincoln’s superintendent about how well he and Albert were doing. Odie tells her about his plans to go with Sister Eve and the crusaders. Aunt Julia begs his forgiveness. Odie needs time, but he thinks he will come back. Aunt Julia understands, and Odie can tell she never stopped loving him. They are enjoying a last meal together when Dolores arrives with visitors: Thelma and Clyde Brickman. Mrs. Brickman knows Julia’s name.
Aunt Julia’s confession explains that her reasons for giving Odie up were rooted in her belief that he would have a better life separated from her and her profession. She can see now that this was not true, that being without his birth family or home has damaged Odie in unpredictable ways. Understanding and accepting his mother’s imperfections, Odie forgives her, though he needs time to decide what life he wants to live now. Here, the novel shows that accepting people’s flaws does not mean forcing oneself to remain in community with them, especially when those people have caused harm, intentional or not. Mrs. Brickman’s sudden reappearance and her apparent knowledge of Aunt Julia suggest there is more to the story than either Odie or his mother knows.
Themes
In the attic room with Aunt Julia and the Brickmans, Odie senses the Tornado God is approaching. Mrs. Brickman found Odie by hiring a man to watch Julia’s house. Years ago, Julia purchased Thelma Brickman’s freedom from the man her father sold her to when she was a child. Mrs. Brickman credits Julia for refining her manners, but Julia attests the other woman tried to strike a deal with the authorities and steal her house. After Julia turned her out, Mrs. Brickman worked in another brothel until Lincoln’s superintendent (Mr. Sparks) offered to marry her, which is how she came to Lincoln Indian Training School. Clyde Brickman, her second husband, was another regular customer from the brothel and a gambler.
Odie’s sense that the Tornado God is approaching intimates that disaster is on its way. Despite the fact that he no longer seems to believe in the Tornado God, this paranoia exhibits the leftover effects of Odie’s trauma. The revelation that Mrs. Brickman used to work for Aunt Julia is a surprising coincidence. There is obvious ill will between the two women given Mrs. Brickman’s treachery, showing that she has been taking advantage of kinder people even before coming to Lincoln. Here, the novel shows how betrayal can severely damage even a close-knit community like the one Julia has gathered in her brothel.
Themes
Julia asks if Mrs. Brickman lured Odie’s father (Zeke) to Minnesota—Zeke used to deliver liquor to the brothel and escorted Mrs. Brickman out of Julia’s house back when they had their falling-out. Zeke’s last delivery in Lincoln was to Clyde Brickman, whose wife recognized him as Julia’s brother-in-law. It is implied that one of the Brickmans shot Zeke, allowing Mrs. Brickman to enact her revenge on Julia’s nephews once they were in her care. She treated Odie so poorly as a mode of punishing Julia.
The implication that the Brickmans may have killed Odie’s adoptive father (and Albert’s biological father) is remarkably coincidental, possibly suggesting that divine intervention was at play (which would support Odie’s prior conceptions of the Tornado God). That Mrs. Brickman adopted Albert and Odie to get revenge on Aunt Julia shows the depth of her malice. With no desire to change her behavior, the novel portrays Mrs. Brickman as uninterested in and undeserving of forgiveness.
Themes
Mrs. Brickman demands to know where Emmy is. She claims not to care about the others or the contents of her safe any longer, but Odie does not believe her. He tells Mrs. Brickman Emmy has fits, hoping this complication will deter her. But Mrs. Brickman knows about Emmy’s strange foresight and has even guessed at her ability to alter the future. Emmy had a fit in Mrs. Brickman’s presence—she woke saying Odie would not fall, suggesting she saved him from dying with DiMarco. Mrs. Brickman wants to use Emmy’s power to her advantage.
Mrs. Brickman has gone to extreme lengths to recapture Emmy, intending to abuse her powers of foresight and altering reality to warp the world to her own advantage. By showing how Mrs. Brickman’s extreme selfishness makes her irredeemable, the novel asserts that having empathy for others is essential to living in and contributing to the broader human community.
Themes
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Odie refuses to reveal Emmy’s location. Mrs. Brickman threatens to bring him to the police, and Julia intervenes, saying she will kill Mrs. Brickman if she has to. Odie refuses to leave his mother. Mrs. Brickman pulls a handgun and threatens to shoot Julia, despite her husband’s protests. No one will believe Odie, whom she calls “a depraved boy whose mother was a whore[.]” Odie lunges at Mrs. Brickman as the gun goes off, shooting him in the thigh. He feels the Tornado God swirling, but it is his mother, who grapples with Mrs. Brickman until both women fall out the window, landing sprawled on the patio below.
In this scene, both Aunt Julia and Odie demonstrate that they are willing to risk their lives for the sake of their family. It is worth noting that Odie’s final experience of the Tornado God transforms into his mother fighting to protect him, implying that human goodness is strong enough to create change in the world—in this case, Aunt Julia’s actions save Odie’s life.
Themes
