Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Night Watchman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Solidarity, and Community Action
Oppression and Supposed Good Intentions
Humor and Pain
Sex, Violence, and Gender
Agency and Exploitation
Summary
Analysis
As they walk back to Patrice’s home, Wood Mountain tells Patrice that he thought of a temporary name for the baby: Archille, after his father. Patrice, though, keeps using Gwiizikens for the baby, meaning little boy. Falling in love with Wood Mountain is how things would normally go, but she continues to say things she knows will discourage him. She admits to herself, though, that it is much easier to discourage Barnes than Wood Mountain.
Wood Mountain shows how much he already cares about Vera’s baby by naming him (temporarily, he says) after his father. Though she continues to develop feelings for Wood Mountain, she also remains attached to her independence and seems unwilling to give it up to follow the expected path of falling in love and getting married.
Themes
At home, Patrice tells Zhaanat that she wasn’t able to find Vera and only brought the Little Boy home. Eventually, Zhaanat gathers herself and takes the baby inside. Her thinking, as a whole, is built on using great care with everything around her. She begins to nurse the baby, even though she doesn’t have milk, saying that in the old days, when a baby’s mother couldn’t nurse, older women could sometimes take on that role.
With Vera still missing, the people in her life, even people like Wood Mountain who Vera might not know especially well, step in to be surrogate parents for her child, strengthening the bonds of their family and community. Zhaanat’s desire to attempt to nurse the baby, even though she doesn’t have milk to give, is another example of how far people in the community will go in their efforts to support one another.
Themes
