Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Moon of the Crusted Snow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Technology, Society, and Survival
Colonialism, Oppression, and Trauma
Selfishness vs. Selflessness
Gender, Power, and Wisdom
Summary
Analysis
The days have been getting shorter, but so far, the sunny autumn has kept winter at bay. Evan sighs as he looks at the blank television and his blank cell phone screen. He thinks that the weather might be responsible for the outage, but Isaiah thinks it’s probably just the reservation’s bad receivers. Evan grabs two large bags of moose meat for his parents and throws them into his truck. He tunes the car radio to 98.1 FM (the reservation’s community station) while joking about going back in time with just a radio for entertainment.
The continued outage is a nuisance, but Evan’s ability to entertain himself without technology shows that he’s not dependent on it to feel good. Evan’s quip about going back in time is ominous, as it foreshadows that the community may soon need to do just that—and rely on their ability to live without technology—just as they did in the past. Rice also reinforces the community ethic in Evan’s circle. Evan has only just finished butchering the moose, but he’s immediately sharing his bounty with his extended family.
Themes
Evan drives by the reservation’s hockey rink and wonders if he would have made it as a hockey player, had the rink had been there when he was younger. However, he thinks, the “comfort and familiarity” of the community and land made him never want to leave—he didn’t even leave for college. Evan started working for the roads department with his father (Dan) in between hunting and fishing.
The “comfort and familiarity” of life on the reservation is deeply valuable because it gives people like Evan a sense of meaning and purpose. If the signal outages continue as the winter sets in, the community will need to rely on each other even more to survive.
Themes
Evan parks and walks around to the back of his childhood home, where Dan is tanning a moose hide. Evan picks up a scraper, and they work on the hide silently together, both enjoying the quiet intimacy of the moment. They stop for a smoke break, pulling cigarettes from their left pockets in unison, and they chat about their meat stores for the winter. Dan already heard about Evan’s kill through other people in the community, so he knew Evan was coming by with moose meat. They smoke in happy silence, and Evan takes the meat inside to his mother, Patricia.
When Evan arrives at his parents’ place, he immediately helps his father, once again showcasing his community values. Dan already knows about Evan’s successful hunting trip, which suggests that the reservation’s residents are effectively communicating via word-of-mouth, in spite of the cell signal outage. This suggests that tight-knit communities don’t need to rely on technology, as they’re in close contact all the time—unlike people who live away from their families and exclusively rely on phones and computers to share news.
Themes
Inside, Patricia is sitting at the computer, exasperated because the internet is out. Evan navigates easily through the well-worn house, chuckling because he knows Patricia likes to gamble online. The internet and television have both been out since yesterday. Evan jokes that, on the bright side, they can eat supper on time; Patricia elbows him playfully as she gets up. In truth, Evan is a little uneasy that the television satellite, phone lines, and internet are all down. He heads back outside and has another comfortable, silent smoke with Dan as they scan the horizon.
Despite Patricia’s exasperation about the power outage, she remains jovial and upbeat—she doesn’t need technology to be happy. Evan’s uneasiness informs the reader that this power outage might not be just a temporary blip, but a more widespread issue. Meanwhile, Evan and Dan have clearly absorbed crucial indigenous survival habits like intuitively scanning the horizon (which comes in handy when looking for food, spotting threats, or assessing the weather).
Themes
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Evan is surprised when Dan says he had a dream last night, because Dan never talks about his dreams. In the dream, it was a spring night, and Dan was walking toward a hill with a shotgun over his shoulder. The other side of the hill was on fire. In the dream, Evan and his friends were staring at the fire, wearing hunting gear but looking skinny and weak. Evan looked up with a scared look on his face, and then Dan woke up. Hearing this, Evan suddenly feels anxious, and he jokes nervously that it’s a good thing he caught that moose he hunted. Eventually, Dan’s face breaks into a smile, and he bats Evan playfully on the shoulder before heading inside. Evan is relieved.
In the story, dreams predict the future. In Dan’s dream, it’s spring, and people are emaciated, suggesting that the community will struggle for food this winter. Evan’s fearful expression in the firelight implies that something bad will happen to Evan near a fire. Additionally, Evan is with his friends in the dream, suggesting that community will prove important in the hard times ahead. Evan’s respectful reaction to Dan’s dream indicates that he respects and takes guidance from his elders. This attitude toward the elders’ wisdom will likely prove essential in the upcoming crisis that Dan’s dream predicts.
Themes
