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
The meeting in Fargo is held in a judicial building. As John Cooper reads through the legislation, Thomas is frustrated. About 12 people there either don’t speak English or have a hard time understanding it and have gone to great expense and effort to be there. As they have for generation after generation, they attempt to understand “a white man reading endlessly from a sheaf of papers.”
This section highlights the ways that those in power have often operated in bad faith, trying to hide their true motives behind bureaucratic language or by using language that they know the people they’re talking to won’t fully understand.
Themes
After John Cooper finishes reading through the bill, Thomas and the group he traveled with voice their frustration. Mr. Holmes says that according to the bill, there won’t be any further government service for the Turtle Mountain people. “You will now be equal with whites as far as the government is concerned,” he says. Joyce Asiginak says that their rights will decrease, so for them, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be equal. Mr. Holmes says that they will be relocated to other places with equal levels of opportunity, and Juggie Blue says that they don’t want to leave their homes. Eddy Mink adds that the services the government provides to Native people are similar to rent, rent payment for use of the entire United States. At the end, they take a vote. For the bill: 0. Against: 47.
The language games continue in this passage, as Mr. Holmes uses words like “equal” and “relocate” when he means, as Joyce Asiginak says, “stripped of your rights” and “forcibly relocated.” The vote at the end also offers a straightforward rebuke to those kinds of obfuscations as well as Arthur Watkins's claims to be acting in the best interests of Native people. If the Termination Bill were actually in the best interests of Native people, then why would they be unable to garner a single vote of support among people who the bill claims to want to help?
Themes
After the meeting, the group goes to dinner. When Thomas walks out of the restaurant, he sees Pogo Paranteau, Patrice’s father, who is drunk. At first, Thomas tries to get Pogo to let them take him home. Eventually, he gives up, thinking that it would be better to let him stay in Fargo than return home where he would have been a terror to his family.
Thomas’s initial reaction to seeing Patrice’s father is to try and help him and take him home. After thinking for a second, though, he decides that it would be better for Patrice’s family if he didn’t, which shows just how much damage Paranteau has caused and how much he is still capable of causing. It also shows the consideration that Thomas has for the people in his life.
Themes
