People Of The Whale Excerpt

People of the Whale is a 2008 novel by Linda Hogan most a Native American human being with a supernatural ability to breathe underwater named Thomas Just who is forced to come to terms with his experiences in Vietnam during the state of war. The novel is separated into three parts. Its chapter titles are known to use a lot of colons, and chapters profoundly vary in length from 2 to sometimes 30 pages.

Plot [edit]

The novel begins with a brief prologue explaining the history of Nighttime River, the fictional reservation where the main character, Thomas Just, is built-in. The 24-hour interval of his nativity, Thomas'south mother holds him upwards to a giant octopus that can walk on country, request for information technology to look after him, explaining that it knew his granddad, Witka, a mystical man who used his ability to hold his breath underwater for long periods of time to human action every bit the whale hunter for the tribe. As Thomas grows up, he loves the water like his gramps and eventually marries a childhood friend named Ruth. They share an intimate wedlock until 1 twenty-four hours at the drafts office, Thomas drunkenly signs up for the war with some of his friends, much to the sadness of Ruth. Ruth bears a child, Marco, named later on the explorer Marco Polo, afterward Thomas leaves for Vietnam. Years pass as Ruth raises Marco; eventually the day comes when Thomas is supposed to return, merely he does non. Instead, he disappears and is described as beingness "fabricated up of lies." Thomas has been inverse past his experiences in Vietnam, and thoughts menses through his head, such every bit his cheating on his married woman with a Vietnam adult female named Ma, the sadness he experienced when the army took him away from Vietnam, and the faces of shot men from war scenes he was in.

The novel flash-forward to the year 1988. There have been rumors around the tribe about a plot to kill a whale, and Ruth, attempting to expose that the whale killing is merely for coin, takes a stand against the council backside it, which consists mainly of Thomas'due south old war friends. The whale hunt attracts the media, and Thomas, seeing this, decides to return to the tribe in order to try to discover himself. He returns to the reservation, but refuses to talk to Ruth or Marco. The local men, led by Dwight, persuade Thomas to join them on the hunt. Marco has the job of listening for the whale, and on the day of the hunt, he is able to experience a whale every bit information technology approaches and expresses this to his father. When the whale appears, Thomas, without thinking, shoots the whale with his gun, and is suddenly flooded with harrowing memories of his experiences in the state of war. Chaos ensues the other men open burn down on the whale, the canoe is flipped over, and Marco disappears. After returning, the men, excluding Thomas, carelessly leave the whale on the beach and go inside to watch a football game game, causing Thomas to realize the tribe has abased its traditional values. Milton, i of the men who is mentally slow, says that someone with a big ring drowned Marco, but little of the tribe believes him.

Thomas subsequently goes into mental withdrawal and builds a fence around Witka's domicile where he resides, further isolating himself from the balance of the tribe in the process. Nighttime River experiences a drought, with rain ceasing to autumn and the ocean receding. Ruth decides to ask aid from the Pelting Priest, a mystical human said to be able to bring the rain dorsum. She offers her gunkhole, the Marco Polo, as sacrifice, and the Pelting Priest arrives in Dark River and causes h2o to pour downwardly for days. In the tribe, the pelting reveals the history of the tribe – seashell buildings built by ancestors in the distant past believed to have disappeared. Information technology is revealed that Thomas has made a cede, just similar Ruth: he commits to traveling to Washington D.C. to render his medals and tell the regular army the truth and then to fly to Vietnam to discover his girl, Lin.

Narration shifts to Thomas'due south experiences in the Vietnam War many years agone. He is described as never fitting in with the other men, who disrespected the expressionless and didn't mind the roughshod violence of war. 1 twenty-four hour period, Thomas's troop flies to a wrong location, a boondocks containing only poor children and women instead of an enemy camp they had been looking for. One of the troops, named Murphy, begins to assail an innocent immature girl. As the others brainstorm to assail other residents, Thomas suddenly fires his gun. He goes on to impale almost his entire platoon with little conscious thought, paralleling his wiggle reaction of shooting the whale in Dark River years later. Thomas leaves his dog tags for the American army to find, disappearing into Vietnam society. He marries a local adult female, Ma, and actively works to hide from being establish past the U.Southward. Regular army. They give birth to their daughter, Lin, who Thomas attaches to over time. One solar day, however, Ma is killed past a land mine, and at her funeral, Thomas is plant by the Americans and is taken away from his daughter, throwing him into sadness as he is forced abroad from a life he loves.

Every bit if to symbolize Thomas's removal from guild, Hogan switches from the perspective of Thomas to the perspective of Lin. These chapters are some of the longest in the book and make up a lot of the second role.

Lin recalls her life as an orphan after the death of Ma and the taking away of Thomas dorsum to America past U.S. Troops. She remembers how pitiful her father was as he rose in the helicopter back to the U.S. and how she waited for him to come back, always holding the red fish he had bought her years ago. Forced away from her hamlet because of soldiers closing in, she is presented with gruesome scenes of violence and corpses. She is grabbed past one of the immature soldiers; they stare at each briefly, just the soldier lets her go. Eventually, she travels to Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, where she makes a living sweeping the streets. At that place, she is able to win the favor of a man in a flower store on the street; realizing that she is homeless, he takes her nether his wing and provides her with food. His married woman is initially reluctant to accept her, though soon she gains affection for Lin considering of the difficult work she does. As she grows upward, her affinity for knowledge causes her to take undercover classes and study different languages on her own. Lin also has a knack for connecting missing family unit members, a skill which eventually becomes her job. She meets her future husband at an English language class, who turns out to be the young soldier that permit her go when she was running away from her village years ago. With her life now in order, she now resolves to discover her begetter in America.

Lin leaves her husband to visit Thomas in Nighttime River. It is here that she meets upwardly with Ruth, of whom Lin'due south start impression is a strong, stubborn woman who stands up for what is right. Ruth is unusually enthusiastic to see her; she brings her to Thomas'due south home, where a shell-shocked Thomas is unable to speak or limited his feelings. Lin brings him a blood-red fish as retentiveness of when Thomas bought one for her as a gift; yet, it only reminds him of state of war and the loss of Marco. Lin leaves and Ruth is angered by Thomas's credible dismissal of his own daughter.

In role 3, Thomas goes to Washington, D.C. with Dwight and another men to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. At the memorial, Thomas solemnly reflects on his life in Vietnam. He is reminded of the arid landscapes bombed and defoliated, and the hostility of his unit of measurement. He sees his ain name on the wall with a circled cross next to it, and suddenly begins to cry as he thinks virtually the people in his troop that he killed.

At the hotel, Thomas notices the ring Dwight is wearing, recalling Milton's statement about Marco being held down by a man with a ring. He turns against Dwight and accuses him of murdering his son, but Dwight denies the idea. Because of this encounter, Dwight decides later that he needs to "keep a sentry" on Thomas. Meanwhile, Thomas tries to return the medals he earned for his service in Vietnam at The Pentagon; this does non go as he had wanted, as the truth Thomas reveals is ignored past the men, who tell him to let the by go.

Dorsum in Dark River, Thomas reconciles with Ruth. He explains that he wants to be remembered every bit a man of tradition rather than a man of state of war, and vows to go Dwight back for what he had done to the whale and their son. When he tells Ruth nigh how he shot the whale during the hunt, she gets angry that he went confronting Marco and dismisses him, though is partly understanding of his situation.

Thomas and his men paddle on a canoe out into the water. He begins to sing ancient tribal songs, and Dwight, jealous of Thomas and possibly intimidated by the threat he poses, of a sudden pulls out a pistol and shoots Thomas. Thomas falls into the water, apparently unaffected spiritually, and dies. Still, his spirit is later seemingly reincarnated into his trunk by the Old Ones and he awakes a new, whole homo. Dwight is arrested by his ain friends and is put to justice. Months later, Thomas visits Ruth and her boyfriend Dick Russell, expressing his gratitude for all that she has done for him and that he intends to travel to Vietnam to run into Lin.

Characters [edit]

Thomas - The protagonist, who has a special power to breathe underwater. Born to the A'atsika people of the Dark River Native American reservation, he is the husband of both Ruth and Ma as well as the father of Marco Polo and Lin. As a soldier in Vietnam, Thomas never gets used to the constant violence and killing that comes with war, and he eventually ends up killing his unabridged platoon in order to prevent the assail of an innocent boondocks. He disappears into normal societal Vietnam life and creates a family at that place, but years later the U.S. army forces him away. A Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, he is unable to face up his erstwhile life or express his feelings. He attempts to reconnect with his tribe to resolve the conflict from within him, but finds the A'atsika people (mainly his old war friends who are corrupt and have accepted money from the Japanese to kill a whale) have abandoned their traditions. He goes into isolation after the expiry of his son, Marco, during the whale hunt, unable to face up the ocean. Eventually, he resolves to return his war medals in Washington D.C. as a way of becoming a pure existence of his tribe and letting get of his war life. He learns from the tribe elders near A'atsika traditions, and seemingly finds peace. When he is shot past Dwight, his spirit becomes one with the bounding main, and he is reincarnated as a whole, harmonious homo.
Ruth - Thomas'south wife and the mother of Marco Polo, and a telepath. Born with gills, she has a natural affinity for the water, and ends up living on a gunkhole, the Marco Polo, in the ocean. She is upset with Thomas'due south determination to enlist in the ground forces, and so when he goes to Vietnam, she has to raise Marco all on her own. A devoted traditionalist, Ruth heavily protests the councilmen when they accept a deal from the Japanese to kill a whale nether the guise of "returning to tradition;" even when the men destroy her property, she persists in trying to get them to stop. She is unsure of her feelings for Thomas when he comes back to Night River decades after he left for war, but even so cares for him and brings him food and water. When Lin comes to find her father, Ruth is very welcoming and caring, and it is implied that Ruth's friendly, nigh motherly treatment of Lin is perchance an effort on her role to live vicariously through and be the parent Thomas never was, or is now incapable of beingness. When Thomas approaches her about their human relationship, she is somewhat understanding, just aroused when she finds out that Thomas went against Marco when he shot the whale. At the stop of the novel afterward Thomas'southward reincarnation, Ruth has moved on from loving Thomas in a romantic sense, but all the same decided loves him in a brotherly mode.
Lin - Thomas'due south bastard daughter from Vietnam. Growing up at a young age, she develops a special connexion with her father, so when he is taken away by the U.S. Army, she is devastated. As an orphan, she is forced abroad from her home because of the war and makes a life on the streets in Ho Chi Minh City. With her clever intellect, she is able to proceeds the favor of a couple in a florist shop on the street, which provides her with shelter and food. She finer makes a prosperous life for herself, taking classes and finding a job helping connect lost family members. When she travels to America to find her father, she is surprised that both America and Thomas are non what she expected – she had heard glorified things about both, notwithstanding both end upward dissimilar from her expectations.
Marco Polo - Thomas and Ruth'south son, who is considered wise beyond his years. Raised from birth solely by Ruth, he shows a deep connexion with the ocean, like his granddaddy, Witka. Marco grows into a strong human being, able to hear and experience the creatures in the ocean. He eventually learns he is destined to fulfill the role of listening for the whale during the hunt, an event in which he talks his male parent for the start time. When the whale approaches the boat, Marco senses the friendliness of the whale, much to the content of his male parent, but is drowned by Dwight during the chaos of when the whale is shot and killed.
Dwight - The antagonist. From the moment they met as kids, Dwight has been jealous of Thomas's abilities to concord his breath underwater. Because of this, he develops an increasingly hostile mental attitude toward him throughout the novel, first lying to Thomas during the state of war and telling him that Marco is not his son, then gradually coming to realize he needs to eliminate the threat Thomas poses because of Thomas'south continual reprimanding of his actions. Dwight becomes a corrupt councilman for the tribe and organizes the whale hunt for the reward of money, and he drowns Marco during the hunt equally well. When he visits Washington D.C. with Thomas and the other men, he is confronted by Thomas about the killing of Marco. Dwight denies the claims, deciding that he needs to get rid of Thomas in example he is exposed. When the men are back at the tribe on a boat, Thomas begins to sing a tribal vocal, and Dwight, yet jealous of Thomas, pulls out his pistol and shoots Thomas, a offense for which he is subsequently arrested.
Witka - Thomas'due south grandfather. Witka was a highly regarded whaler known for his mystic power to hold his breath underwater for extended periods of fourth dimension. Interim as the messenger between the A'atsika people and ocean life, he helped the tribe exercise the tradition of revering the whales and body of water. He became acquainted with the octopus and establish that information technology liked shiny objects such as pearls and rings.

Connectedness to Native American culture [edit]

Throughout the novel, bits of Native American culture are embedded and intertwined with Thomas'due south story. Oftentimes, Hogan describes events from a perspective where readers must suspend their atheism and look at the globe from a dissimilar way (e.g. when Witka is able to seemingly communicate with his wife when he is underwater and his married woman is on land, the fact Marco is able to see all life under the body of water in visions, and Thomas's reincarnation), and in the story, Pacific Northwest Native American myths are truthful. The respect for whales and ocean life stems from Inuit and Northwest Native American culture, where whales are believed to help people survive by offer themselves, therefore holding a position of reputation.^[1] This is apparent in Nighttime River, as whale hunting was a huge part of life for the Native Americans in the reservation, and they held whales in the highest regard. The A'atsika people sang many ancient songs that were passed down through many generations, which connects to the Native American tradition of expressing a tribe'southward history through music. The concept of spirits and the spirit world is a big part of Native American culture – Pueblo peoples had rituals for the spirits while wearing masks (masks are found in the novel since Thomas'due south begetter makes them), and Navajo beliefs included trying to maintain harmony with the spirit world. A lot of tribes believed in the concept of humans having one soul that perished with the body and another soul that lived on,^[2] which connects to Thomas's soul living on after he was killed by Dwight.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols [edit]

People of the Whale contains many symbols and motifs and also subtly conveys messages about Native Americans and relationships.

H2o is used as an element to symbolize purity, honesty, and life. After Marco is drowned and the whale is untraditionally killed by Dwight and the other councilmen, the bounding main recedes, as if to condemn the dishonesty in the tribe and the abandoning of tradition. When the rain returns, h2o pours downwardly upon the tribe, revealing a whale killed by the white men besides as aboriginal seashell buildings congenital long ago. The water in a sense purifies the tribe, exposing how corrupt the men have been, as well as revealing more than virtually the history of the tribe. The fact that Thomas cries besides when the sea returns is a reference to h2o, since he at the moment promises to render his medals in Washington, an deed of revealing the truth. The ocean also is the home to myriads of body of water creatures, of which the people of the tribe revere. The sea represents life to the tribe, and then much then to Thomas at the end of the novel that when he is killed, his spirit essentially becomes part of the h2o, equally people of the tribe "saw him moving above water, dead, as if it was his soul, carried direct out to sea."
The passing of time does not have any boundaries; we notwithstanding incorporate the aforementioned roots inside usa regardless of what nosotros experience. This is shown in function by the octopus that appears multiple times throughout the novel. Every bit an animal that is idea to be the Rain Priest, it appears during Witka's time during one of his trips underwater, was present when Thomas's mother held Thomas up and asked for it to look over him, climbed out of the Marco Polo after the returning of the rain to the tribe, and was rumored to have watched over Thomas after his death. The octopus is present through several generations from Witka to Thomas and Marco, and watches over Thomas during the course of his life. Because of Witka's generosity years dorsum, the octopus still watches over his family line, looking out for Thomas even when his life is torn apart by state of war; fifty-fifty subsequently becoming almost an entirely new person, Thomas still is able to notice and bring out his past since his tribal roots are uneroded by time, just as the octopus remembers its past with Witka and looks over Thomas. And even afterward all the years Thomas was at war, he and Ruth all the same retain the chapters to care and love. Though Thomas is initially traumatized upon returning to the tribe and Ruth moves on at the finish of the novel from loving Thomas in a romantic sense, they both still show they care for each other and that fourth dimension did not completely erase their relationship. Thomas learns to venerate Ruth as a person who endured many hardships when he was gone, and Ruth shows affection for Lin considering she still cares about Thomas and wishes to at least be a parental, loving figure that he never was able to be for Marco. This shows that even though their love has grown afar, the capability of caring remains unaffected by decades of war and separation.
The clash of culture and world gild. Throughout the novel, readers tin catch a glimpse of not only how Native American culture has been affected past colonization, only likewise how Vietnamese culture was severely disrupted by state of war. The gradual disappearance of such cultures is demonstrated by showing how larger ones engulf them. White American men such as Dwight possibly could stand for all American colonists that came from Europe – he nearly tears apart the traditions of Dark River through his arrangement of the corrupt whale hunt, hinting at how colonists subdued Native American civilisation centuries ago. In Vietnam, war completely eradicates many small cultures spread throughout the country, such as Lin's. Thomas settles in Vietnam as a way of escaping from the anarchy and isolation he feels from war and moving into a unified, intimate community. However, state of war eventually catches up to him once again, and he is forced out of this life, with the village itself being destroyed past war just a few years later. Hogan is able to narrate the story in a way where readers are able to sympathise with the Vietnamese and Native Americans since readers tin can empathise their precious traditions by looking at life from some other viewpoint. A civilisation serves the purpose of guiding a group of people with stories, songs, and activities – something that is clearly nowadays in Night River, but likewise in the hamlet in Vietnam on a smaller calibration, with the people sharing the common wish to only wanting to survive and stay away from state of war. The decline in these cultures conveys the detrimental furnishings of modernistic lodge on smaller cultures.
The concept of duality and doubles is omnipresent in the novel, especially in the clarification of Thomas'due south experiences and character. Thomas has two lives, two families, and is a office of two cultures; many things in the novel are also viewed from two perspectives. For example, Thomas'southward last proper name, Just, was given as a style of demeaning him, yet Lin looks at information technology as a proper name representing justice and balance, and Thomas's massacre of his troop is described as dishonorable, yet "the only, the almost honorable thing he'd done the whole time." These dualities are symbolic of the conflict within Thomas – he struggles to resolve his two lives and discover peace. By the end of the story, Thomas has corrected the imbalance in himself to go a whole private again. He lets go of his war life just retains his experiences as a Vietnam villageman, and his two lives mix within him to ultimately brand him spiritual and pure; his character conveys that the key to finding peace is to find rest within oneself.
Thomas shows his desire to prevent a loss of innocence throughout his life, with a prominent image of a fenced off land mine associated with information technology. In Vietnam, Thomas constantly disdains the tearing practices of war, specially the killing of innocent Vietnamese citizens. When Tater and the residuum of Thomas'southward platoon begin attacking the village, Thomas stands up for the innocent people past shooting his men. He also pushes the new, innocent soldier in his troop, Mike, to safe in order to foreclose him from beingness hurt. Afterward, he wishes to build fences around the land mines planted past the American soldiers in civilian areas to protect innocent people from being killed. Eventually, the mines practise take the life of someone innocent – his wife, Ma. His devastation after this event is understandable, as he is deeply upset that non only Ma's innocence was taken, but Lin'southward as well since Lin was exposed to such a sad event. His desire to protect innocence mayhap stems from his own loss of innocence; past being exposed to state of war, Thomas is deprived of his innocence through the traumatic events he experiences, and knowing how information technology feels, wants to prevent such a loss from happening in others. Upon returning to his tribe in America only to see that he cannot protect Marco's innocence, he withdraws from society partly due to his failure to foreclose then many peoples' innocence. A loss of innocence is a loss of purity, and so building a fence effectually his house acts to condemn the impure world he lives in; he tin no longer face the clear water. Thomas is able to reach past this in the terminate and somewhen become whole and pure, turning into a devoted traditionalist of the tribe who helps to spread faith, tradition, and honesty.

References [edit]

Hogan, Linda. People of the Whale. W. Due west. Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-33534-seven

Footnotes [edit]

^ Native American Whale Mythology
^ Native American Faith