Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Elatsoe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Friendship
Justice
Cultural Identity and Coming of Age
Colonialism and Monsters
Death, Grief, and Healing
Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Ellie stares out the window as she and Dad begin the 14-hour drive to McAllen. She thinks of her memories of Trevor. Ellie has always idolized him, and he got her hooked on comic books and graphic novels. After he moved to Kunétai, 14-year-old Ellie visited him and his wife, Lenore, a fellow teacher. According to Vivian, Lenore and Trevor fought often about culture and belonging: Lenore is Spanish, but Trevor figured she and their children could and would be Lipan if they felt like they belonged to that culture. At one point, Ellie saw the argument starting and distracted them by showing off Kirby’s tricks. While Lenore was impressed, she declined Ellie’s offer to teach Lenore’s kids to wake the dead, as “[d]eath is death.”
This passage suggests that Trevor’s insistence that Lenore could consider herself Lipan was wishful thinking: though Lenore seems to respect that raising the dead is an important element to her in-laws’ family, she also refuses to let that element carry on in her own nuclear family. It’s not clear how (or if) Trevor and Lenore ever settled this argument before Trevor died, suggesting that this is something Lenore will have to continue to navigate now that her husband is dead.
Themes
Trevor took Ellie hiking the next day. He explained that though he’d like to walk here daily, he can’t until he retires. Suddenly, he noticed how overgrown and quiet the trail was. But before they got far, an elderly, stooped hiker with long gray hair met them—and Trevor leaped between the man and Ellie, telling her to run. The hiker straightened, revealing that it didn’t have a face: it was the Leech, a monster Six-Great supposedly killed. In Lipan, the Leech said she only tried to kill him and now, he’d like to kill Ellie. Trevor threatened it with his Swiss Army knife, but Ellie killed the monster by summoning thousands of mosquitos’ ghosts. Trevor was extremely impressed, but Ellie was sad: “[i]nvasive creatures, foreign curses, [and] cruel magics” have replaced the old monsters. That was the last time Ellie and Trevor hung out.
Trevor’s Swiss Army knife begins to emerge as a symbol for mortality and a lack of control when it comes to death. It’s safe to say that the knife will likely do nothing against a monster like the Leech. Ellie’s knowledge of how to raise the dead, in contrast, seems way more adaptable and well-suited to besting monsters—another possible indicator that Ellie, rather than the state justice system, will have more luck when it comes to punishing Allerton. As Ellie considers the things that have replaced old monsters like the Leech, she gestures to colonialism. The Leech and the Kunétai creature once harassed Native Americans and could be more or less vanquished. But in the novel’s present, various foes ranging from the vampire curse to pollution are taking a huge toll on the natural world and the people who inhabit it.
Themes
