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Chapter 7
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in How Much of These Hills Is Gold, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Lies, and History
Civilization vs. Wilderness
Home
Identity and Gender
Family
Grief
Summary
Analysis
After Lucy and Sam part ways with the mountain man, it rains for days as they slog toward the mountains. Just as they reach the Sweetwater River, the rain stops. Lucy turns to take one last look at the harsh, dangerous landscape of her childhood and sees it as never before. From afar, she can’t see how dry and dusty it is. Instead, the gold-washed hills look beautiful, like “riches upon riches” stacked up between her and the coast.
Lucy and Sam set out on a headlong dash from their old life after Ba’s death. It was hard, but at least they had a clear sense of purpose—to find a place to bury Ba. Now they travel toward an unknown world and a potential conflict, because it’s already clear that Sam wants to stay in the wilderness as much as Lucy wants to leave it. Only from far enough away can she start to see the beauty in the harsh landscape of her past.
Active
Themes
The swollen, fast-flowing Sweetwater River comes as a shock to Lucy, to whom “river” has always meant a dirty rivulet of water dripping through parched hills. As soon as she can, she strips naked and plunges into the icy water to scrub herself clean of the dirt, but also of the past. She is increasingly and uncomfortably aware of how her desires and Sam’s are diverging. Unlike Lucy, Sam clings to the past and to the wilderness, evidently content to go on living an itinerant life as they did when Ba was still alive.
The Sweetwater River has almost more water in its banks than Lucy thinks she’s seen in her entire life. Its liquidity maps onto the rich resources she hopes to find in civilization—and onto the hope that if she just finds a place where resources are plentiful enough, people will be willing to share with her. She seems to have forgotten the message of Sam’s buffalo story that White American culture takes everything it can—more than it needs, even—whenever it can.
Active
Themes
Lucy pulls a fully clothed Sam into the river to wash, ripping Sam’s pants in the process. Three objects tumble to the bottom. One is the penis-shaped rock. The other two are shiny. Sam dives frantically to retrieve them and emerges from the water with the two silver dollars meant for Ba’s burial in hand.
Active
Themes
