Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Marrow Thieves, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cyclical Histories, Language, and Indigenous Oppression
Family and Coming of Age
Humans and Nature
Trauma, Identity, and Pride
Summary
Analysis
Mitch shows Frenchie his find: a big bag of Doritos. He explains that he found it in a nearby house hidden on top of a cabinet, like Mom used to hide things. He opens the bag to distract them from their sadness—they lost Mom a few months ago. Mitch and Frenchie are hiding out in a forgotten tree house a few hours from Southern Metropolitan City (formerly Toronto) and though Dad told them that they needed to keep moving to stay safe, the tree house feels safe to them. Minutes after Mitch pops the bag open, Recruiters (truancy officers) come around the corner. Mitch tells Frenchie to climb out the window and up a nearby pine tree. Mitch says that the Recruiters know there's someone in the tree house, but they don't know how many.
The fact that Toronto is now called Southern Metropolitan City suggests that major changes have happened to the world in the novel. It's also telling that Mitch, who's also just a kid, feels the need to sacrifice himself for his little brother—clearly, these two are in grave danger, and their whole family was running at some point. In this moment, Mitch steps into an adult role and does whatever he can to make sure that Frenchie has the best chance at life possible.
Themes
Mitch looks almost angry as he scolds Frenchie. Frenchie does as he's told and watches the Recruiter blow his whistle. Mitch starts yelling for the Recruiters to come and get him. He continues yelling as they drag him out of the tree house, breaking one of his arms in the process, and drag him into the van. Frenchie holds tightly to the tree and considers letting himself fall. He wonders if he’ll be taken to the school with Mitch and might be reunited with Mom and Dad too, but he knows this is impossible.
Frenchie's daydream reminds the reader how young he is (he later reveals that he's eleven here) and shows too how much he longs for his biological family, even when he understands logically that reconnecting with them is impossible. Breaking Mitch's arm on the way into the van suggests that the Recruiters are inhumane and don't care about their victims.
Themes
About a year before, Dad met a man named Miig who escaped from the residential schools and who shared what the government is doing to the Indigenous people. Miig explained that the current schools are based off of the historical ones. Mom shooed Mitch and Frenchie off to bed and the next day, the family packed up to head north. Dad insisted that they'd find home there. Frenchie was tired and cold, but he tried not to complain. This is the second time they've moved in a year; the year before, they moved to this settlement after things became dangerous and the electricity was cut off. Before they left, however, Dad and the Council went to try to speak to the Governors at the capital. They never returned. Frenchie says that he felt special then, but he didn't know how dangerous it was to be special.
Frenchie's comment about feeling special speaks to the mindset he's in as an Indigenous person: he should be proud of who he is, and he is special—especially in this world, where the reader will later learn that Indigenous people are the only ethnic group that can still dream. However, Frenchie is also very at risk for that reason. This begins to teach Frenchie that he shouldn't take pride in his identity and that it's a liability, when in reality—as he'll later learn—taking pride in his identity is the only way to come out of this alive.
Themes
Back in Frenchie's present, he knows that he has to get out of the tree and stay away from the schools. He knows he'll never see Mitch again. He waits until the van is gone and then carefully climbs down the tree, grabs the bag of chips, and runs. Frenchie runs all night and when he finds water the next morning, he can barely keep it down. Near an old outlet mall, Frenchie avoids wildlife—giant raccoons and flying cockroaches—and he throws rocks at guinea pigs in a doorway. The largest male stands up and stares down Frenchie, his large family behind him, and Frenchie threatens to eat his children. He suddenly feels horrible and starts to cry. Frenchie misses his family.
Seeing the safe and intact guinea pig family throws Frenchie' situation makes it even clearer to him that because of who he and his family are, they won't have the opportunity to actually live as a family anymore. The intense physicality of Frenchie's run adds a sense of urgency and necessity to this and starts to make the case that running so hard that he gets sick is preferable to the alternative at the residential schools.
Themes
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Frenchie hits the trees by early evening and collapses. He knows that he doesn't have enough clothes to stay warm, so he builds a small fire and stares at the stars. He jerks awake early in the morning. His cough is worse, but he does his jumping jacks, thinks of Mitch and Mom, and wonders how he's going to find food. He remembers the day that Mom left. The night before, she'd refused to eat. The next morning, she went to the Friendship Center to scavenge for supplies, even though it was a hot spot for Recruiters. She never came back.
The strain of simply existing in a world where one's body is exploited is too much for Mom, especially when she's the sole protector for her two vulnerable children. Though it's impossible to tell, Frenchie seems suspicious that Mom allowed the Recruiters to take her. This shows how effective this kind of consistent trauma is at subduing a population, robbing them of their hopes and dreams for the future.
Themes
Frenchie spends another day running and another night sleeping in the open. He drinks expired meal replacement, which tastes sour. Frenchie falls asleep wishing Mom would find him and wakes up to realize that he spilled the rest of his meal replacement. He throws the tin, wishing Mom had never gone to the Friendship Center, and says out loud that he's going to die. Frenchie vows to die fighting, picks himself up, and continues on. His cough gets even worse. He sits down, watches the stars appear, and thinks that dying will be like a dream. He wonders what happens to those who don't dream when they die. He falls asleep.
Vowing to die fighting, unlike how Mom likely gave herself up, shows that while Frenchie might be scared, he hasn't given up trying to make it in this hostile world yet—at this point, he still understands that taking pride in the fact that he's alive is important and valuable, despite how his environment values him.
Themes
Frenchie wakes up and hears voices like his parents'. A man gives Frenchie water and then spoon-feeds him soup. Frenchie looks around and sees several children of varying ages and an old woman. The man introduces himself as Miig. Frenchie recognizes the name and says, "north." Miig agrees that's where he's going and invites Frenchie to join him. Frenchie sobs.
Frenchie running into Miig opens up the possibility that there simply aren't many Indigenous people around, if it's so easy to run into someone he knows. Miig's invitation shows that he knows that helping children grow up in this world is the only way Indigenous culture can survive.
Themes
