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Chapter 49
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beartown, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Community Breakdown and Inequality
Culture, Character, and Entitlement
Parents and Children
Loyalty and Belonging
Resistance and Courage
Summary
Analysis
Ana wakes up suddenly and realizes that both Maya and the shotgun are missing. In panic, she races through the woods. When she gets to the jogging track and takes in the scene, she hugs Maya, and they go home. The next morning, Ana goes back and recovers the dropped cartridge. If anybody ever asks her about what happened that night, she just says, “Sorry, I didn’t see that incident.”
Ana’s closing remark is an ironic reference back to the neutral “no comment” offered by Kevin to a sports reporter. There, it was an indication of Beartown’s culture of silence. Here, it’s a marker of the two friends’ enduring loyalty to each other.
Active
Themes
Benji limps into the Beartown rink on his crutches and finds Peter. He tells Peter that his foot should be healed in time for the first A-team game, as long as Sune agrees that he’s ready to play. Peter admits to Benji that they might not be able to pay the A-team any wages next season; and, anyway, Benji would have much better opportunities in Hed. Benji just shrugs and answers, “But I’m from Beartown.”
Beartown is attempting to rebuild its A-team, and loyal Benji, despite his talent, is happier to play for free than to join the Hed team. Here, the positive side of the town’s deep commitment to loyalty outshines the negative side.
Active
Themes
Later that year, four teenagers are teaching a kids’ skating class: Amat, Zacharias, Bobo, and Benji. Ten years from now, two of them will be professional hockey players, one will be a father, and one of them will be dead.
Active
Themes
The last child onto the ice is four years old, scrawny, and covered bruises. Although the boys at center ice will build a new Beartown A-team, nobody will remember that 10 years from now. They’ll be talking about the girl “who will become the most talented player this club has ever seen.” Everybody will claim they knew it all along, “because people recognize the bear around here,” and “cherry trees always smell of cherry trees.”
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