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 and Dad arrive at Trevor and Lenore’s three-bedroom house in a friendly neighborhood after 10:00 p.m. Ellie’s mom, Vivian, lets them in and explains that Lenore and Gregory are asleep. The three of them will be in the guest room. While Ellie is brushing her teeth, she notices a comb in the bathroom with too much of Trevor’s hair in it. Afraid it could draw him back—at least, a violent, powerful version of Trevor—Ellie bags the comb and returns to the guest room to peruse the information on Abe Allerton that Jay sent. Dad is already asleep, and Ellie hands Vivian the bagged comb to take care of. Vivian asks about the bridge incident, accepts Ellie’s explanation that she tried to stop Jay from climbing, and turns out the light.
Ellie continues to carefully observe traditional rituals for how to treat the dead and their belongings, which is why she’s so disturbed by the hair. She also shows here that she’s come around to believing fully that human ghosts are, indeed, never good—she knows Trevor as a ghost would be bad news for everyone. Vivian is exhausted, but she also shows here that she trusts Ellie to make good choices when she accepts what Ellie tells her about climbing the bridge.
Themes
Jay texts Ellie a picture of Abe with Willowbee’s mayor, who tattooed Abe for charity. Abe is conventionally attractive—but his smile chills Ellie. Soon after, Lenore texts Ellie, asking her to come to the kitchen. Ellie goes and finds Lenore leaning against the counter. Lenore is in jeans and a sweatshirt, and her hair is stringy and messy. She pulls Ellie into a hug, but Ellie is a bit disturbed by Lenore’s unkempt appearance and lack of her usual perfume. Lenore gives Ellie Trevor’s Swiss Army knife. She laments that while Trevor was always prepared, his knife didn’t help him.
Like Willowbee itself, Abe is attractive—and disturbing in his own way. Lenore’s appearance is also concerning for Ellie, since she’s so used to Lenore being put-together. Giving Ellie Trevor’s Swiss Army knife is a kind gesture, but both Lenore and Ellie recognize that the knife was ultimately useless. Being prepared for anything didn’t stop Trevor’s death—his death was unexpected and senseless.
Themes
As Lenore sags against the counter, Ellie offers to help if Lenore needs anything. Lenore begins to lead Ellie to the garage to take her to where Trevor died, but Ellie pulls back. Sounding increasingly hysterical, Lenore says it doesn’t make any sense—it was a mile from his normal way home. Maybe if they go there, Ellie can bring Trevor back. Ellie again refuses, and she declines to teach Lenore how to raise the dead. She tries to assure Lenore that Trevor’s pain disappeared and he smiled as he died, but Lenore is upset that Ellie got a nice last conversation with him, whereas she didn’t. Vivian appears in the kitchen and sends Ellie back to the bedroom. Dad is comforting Gregory, who’s screaming.
Ellie is confronted with the heartbreaking understanding of just how distraught Lenore is over Trevor’s death. In her emotional upset, Lenore actually wants Ellie to raise Trevor’s ghost—something that Ellie briefly considered, too, but which she knows is inappropriate. Lenore, however, is too upset to fully comprehend how bad of an idea it would be to bring Trevor back. This aspect of Lipan grieving rituals holds no comfort for Lenore.
Themes
Ellie climbs through the guest room’s window and sits on the lawn chairs outside. She pulls out the trilobite fossil out of her pocket and pictures its final (peaceful, she decides) days. Then, she reaches for it in the underworld and asks it to wake up. Its ghost briefly crawls on Ellie’s arm, but then it returns to the underworld. Vivian comes outside to bring Ellie in, but Ellie is too excited about her trilobite to go in. As Vivian sits next to Ellie, they discuss Grandma’s mammoth, who Vivian insists isn’t bored despite being millions of years old. Vivian shares that she isn’t sure if Six-Great woke prehistoric creatures, but she knew about them. She begins to tell the story.
To find some relief from the intense emotions inside, Ellie reaches for the dead—whom she sees as friends—and her mother, highlighting again their close and supportive relationship. Vivian plays an important role in Ellie’s life, as she’s one of the people who has trained Ellie to call on and respect the dead. One of the ways Vivian teaches Ellie is through storytelling, which she begins to do here.
Themes
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Vivian explains that a huge hole opened in the earth overnight, and it seemed to have no bottom. Six-Great insisted on investigating, and her husband insisted on going with her. The hole was in a dangerous and frightening area, with lots of dangerous caves. But many young men surrounded the hole, which smelled of cooked meat, and they told Six-Great that they can’t figure out if the hole had a bottom. One man offered to let the others lower him down to see what’s there. Six-Great and her husband went to the river to water the horses, and there, they met a coyote woman, who asked to ride a horse. The coyote woman revealed that her father was in the hole. He’d roasted a deer and had moved the rock off the hole to vent the smoke, hoping not to anger the bats in the caves.
It’s not immediately apparent what this story has to do with fossils or prehistoric creatures—so for now, the story can simply be entertaining. Six-Great’s husband emerges as a caring and supportive spouse, while Six-Great herself continues to demonstrate her immense sense of responsibility for her tribe and people’s wellbeing.
Themes
Vivian says that Six-Great and her husband returned to the hole, but the young man had already been lowered down. He shouted that it was a monster, and his fellows pulled him up. After the man explained the “monster’s” frightening, spiked appearance, Six-Great asked to be lowered down. She scraped the spikes off of one prickly pear fruit, grabbed another, and went down, offering the spike-less fruit to the coyote first and calling out his trick. But then, bats appeared from every cave passage, and a voice—a bat person—told Coyote he wasn’t welcome after stealing stalagmites for his costume. The bat person wore beads, some of which were fossilized leaves, and she explained fossils and extinction to Six-Great before disappearing into a cave.
Six-Great seems prepared to trick the coyote with prickly pear fruit (and the fruit’s painful spines) when the bat people swoop in to shame Coyote. The bat people in particular present a view of the natural world that’s extremely respectful: Coyote has offended them because he stole stalagmites and is otherwise using and abusing the earth. The bat person’s fossil beads contrast with the stalagmite costume: the beads honor and celebrate past life forms, while Coyote is just trying to enrich himself by disrespectfully repurposing stalagmites.
Themes
Vivian continues, describing how the coyote woman rode home with Six-Great and her husband, spent a few weeks with Six-Great’s pack of living and dead dogs, and disappeared. Ellie asks if there are any coyote or bat people left, and Vivian says they are—but they’re hiding in plain sight these days.
That coyote and bat people are around but in hiding speaks to how the world has changed in the centuries since Six-Great lived: colonialism, for one, has fundamentally changed the United States’ landscape.
Themes
