Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Code Talker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, Language, and Identity
The Navajo Way and the Life of the Warrior
Culture and Patriotism
War, Healing, and Peace
Summary
Analysis
After the food drive, Ned remains fascinated by Japan. He reads whatever he can find in the school library about Japan. Soon, however, Japan’s leaders turn to military solutions to their people’s problems. Building a massive army and navy, they invade and defeat the Chinese and many Pacific island nations. Something similar occurs in Germany, which soon allies with Japan. America begins to worry.
The major powers in both the Pacific and Europe are beginning to build up to World War II. In both cases, countries undergoing economic hardship seek imperialistic solutions to their problems, attacking others in order to gain needed resources.
Themes
For most Navajos, the threat of war seems distant. However, in 1940, the Navajo Tribal Council passes a special resolution. Ned likes the resolution so much that he keeps a copy of it in his wallet, recopying it over the years as the paper grows worn and faded. On behalf of its 50,000 people, the Tribal Council acknowledges the mounting crisis and the fact that there is “no purer concentration of Americanism” than among the First Americans. The Council resolves that the Navajos are ready to defend the U.S. government and pledges its loyal support.
For the Navajo Tribal Council, past oppression by the United States government is not a deterrent from the desire to defend their land and even to come to the defense of the United States. In fact, a commitment to protecting the U.S. is seen as the natural result of the Navajos’ love of their land and people. These words resonate with Ned as well.
Themes
As it turns out, when an attack comes, nobody is prepared. That Sunday, December 7, 1941, Ned is sitting in the dormitory, still feeling ashamed about something that happened two days ago. Ned’s social studies teacher, Mr. Straight, overheard Ned greeting his friends in Navajo. For this one word, he puts Ned in front of the classroom with a dunce cap on his head. Ned feels sad and angry, doubting that bilagáanaas will ever respect him and fearing that his teachers are right—he’ll have to give up everything Navajo in order to be successful.
Even Ned is not spared humiliation for speaking even a few words of his own language. Though he is usually so resilient, such humiliations have a strong effect on Ned, too, undercutting his pride in his language and culture and making him think his teachers’ denigrating remarks might be right.
Themes
Just then, Tommy Nez runs in, shouting that the United States has been attacked. Everyone runs to the main school building, where Mr. Straight leads them to a radio. They listen to the details of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. No one knows what to think or say, but they sense that their world has changed.
Ned’s gloomy thoughts are suddenly disrupted by the news of the Pearl Harbor attack. He doesn’t know it yet, but this event will change everything for him—including his doubts about the Navajo language.
Themes
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