Elatsoe Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Ellie sits at the mall’s food court, nibbling on stale-tasting honey peanuts and wondering how she’s supposed to trust the police to get justice for Trevor. While Ellie hopes Trevor will get what he deserves from the justice system, she’s afraid: crimes against Native people often go unsolved, and Trevor’s murder may have involved magic. Wealthy people like Abe Allerton often get away with arguing that magic makes any evidence untrustworthy.

Ellie acknowledges here how privilege works in her fantastical world: those with enough power and money are able to essentially buy their way out of true justice. In contrast, vulnerable people— including Native Americans— seldom get real justice when they’re victims of crimes.

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Jay arrives just then, sits down, and asks what happened. Ellie says that someone murdered Trevor (though she doesn’t use his name and reminds Jay not to either), and she adds that she must avenge Trevor’s death. Jay asks to help. Ellie agrees and then changes the subject, asking for an update on the graffiti. Jay explains that his sister Ronnie found out what was going on and told her boyfriend, Al (who has the vampire curse, which the U.S. tracks), who wants to climb the bridge and fix the graffiti for Jay. The couple, Jay explains, met at college at North Herotonic.

Like Dad, Jay is immediately supportive and wants to help Ellie in her search for justice. And Ellie shows Jay her support and care for him by asking about the graffiti situation. While the graffiti is played mostly for comic relief—it’s silly how invested in fixing the heart Jay is—it allows the novel to introduce more of Ellie’s support network, Ronnie and Al.

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Ellie admits that she’d like to talk to Ronnie and Al about Herotonic, since she’d like to get a degree in invasive monsters and then start her paranormal investigator business. She wants to learn from people with experience, just like she learned how to summon ghosts like Six-Great from Mom. Jay understands. He shares that his parents hate that Al is a vampire—they even offered to pay for his cure, though he refused—and that it feels like Al is sucking up to him. He and Al are meeting at the bridge tomorrow, and Ellie asks to join. She and Jay discuss whether Ronnie and Al might get married, but they decide that at 20, the couple is too young.

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Having such a big and diverse support network allows Ellie to gain important information, in this case about the college she’d like to attend. She also reaffirms the importance of learning from others, as she’d like to learn from professors in much the same way she learned about ghosts from her mother. In contrast to Ellie’s supportive family, Jay’s parents do not support their children unconditionally—they’re prejudiced against vampires.

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Elatsoe: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis