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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Marrow Thieves, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cyclical Histories, Language, and Indigenous Oppression
Family and Coming of Age
Humans and Nature
Trauma, Identity, and Pride
Summary
Analysis
Eight days after RiRi's death, Miig stops suddenly and tells everyone to scatter into the trees. Frenchie hears Recruiters' whistles and they run until they can't hear them anymore. Miig stops when they find a barn and sends Frenchie up a tree to look around. As Frenchie climbs, he thinks that the sky to the north is black and the schools keep coming. He wonders if going north is pointless, and wonders if anyone will welcome him since he couldn't protect RiRi. Miig calls Frenchie down and Frenchie takes his pack from Rose. She gives him a smile that makes him feel better.
Frenchie's hopelessness and specifically, his comment about how the schools keep moving north suggests the possibility that the Indigenous people may not always be able to rely on the natural world to save them—at some point, they may simply run out of space to go. The schools on the land, however, are monuments to the fact that the settlers have abused and victimized both the Indigenous people and the land.
Themes
The barn is entirely empty. Zheegwon scampers up a ladder to a loft and announces that it's full of hay. Miig and the others join him, and Miig agrees that they can sleep there. Minerva, however, refuses to come up the ladder. She insists that everyone else stay up there, so Miig and Wab make her a comfortable bed on the ground. Miig smokes on the ground with her and Minerva smudges herself with the smoke. At one point, Minerva catches Frenchie's eye and puts a finger to her lips. Frenchie doesn't know why; he's already quiet. Eventually, everyone falls asleep.
Though Frenchie's thoughts on Minerva have changed somewhat since Rose chastised him, it's still telling that he shrugs off her silencing gesture as useless and odd. He's still underestimating her and how sane and aware she actually is, which reminds the reader that Frenchie still has a long way to go toward adulthood, and specifically, toward truly respecting his elders in all ways.
Themes
Frenchie jerks awake when he hears two whistles. He sees flashlights below and looks down to see Minerva. She puts her finger to her lips and smiles at Frenchie. Several Recruiters rush in and take Minerva away, and Miig pulls Frenchie down so they won't see him. The Recruiters declare the barn clear and then drive away. Nobody moves until dawn. Miig discovers that Minerva moved the ladder, and they realize that Minerva sacrificed herself for them. Frenchie starts throwing hay over so they can jump down onto a soft pile. They roll up Minerva's bed.
Minerva's sacrifice would suggest that, as far as she's concerned and when forced to choose, the youth are more important than one Elder. She might suggest that the youth are the ones who will carry the culture forward, while some of the culture will die soon with the Elders. Though her decision is understandable, it also ignores the fact that without old people, the youth have no one to teach them.
Themes
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Rose discovers jingles—like what used to hang from women's dresses at powwows—made from can lids and rolled into a hide. Slopper is confused; he knows they need to be quiet and confirms that the jingles are supposed to make noise. Chi-Boy says that Minerva risked everything "for a life worth living," even though she won't get to live it. Rose cries and puts the hide into her pack. Outside, Miig declares that they'll keep going north. Frenchie says that he's going to go after Minerva.
The jingles represent Minerva's hope for the future, which she hopes will be one in which they can again make noise, be proud, and exist in the open. This hope is what leads Frenchie to decide that they need to go south (and by extension, toward the resistance group). The group, because of its size, makes more noise and lives more proudly.
Themes
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