The Night Watchman

The Night Watchman

by

Louise Erdrich

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Night Watchman makes teaching easy.
The Muskrat Symbol Icon

Thomas’s last name, Wazhashk, comes from wazhashk, which means muskrat, a “lowly, hardworking, water-loving rodent.” Muskrats are common, and they aren’t necessarily the most glamorous animals, Thomas thinks, but they are essential. When Thomas visits his father, Biboon, and asks for the story of his name, Biboon says that in the beginning, the world was covered in water. The creator lined up the best divers and asked them to dive, but none could reach the bottom. Then came the muskrat. The muskrat dove too, as far as it could, and when it came back up, it had drowned. But in its hand, it held a tiny bit of silt from the very bottom, and from that, the creator made the whole earth. This journey is, in some ways, similar to Thomas’s fight against Senator Arthur V. Watkins. Thomas works as hard as he can, dives as deep as he can go, and, as a result, Thomas has a stroke. Unlike the muskrat of the story, though, Thomas recovers, and he—along with all the others who fought alongside him—ultimately succeeds in defeating Arthur Watkins’s Termination Bill, just as the muskrat returned with silt from which the creator made the earth. With that in mind, the muskrat is a symbol of the unsung heroes in the background who do the often unglamorous but industrious work necessary not just to make the world keep going, but to protect what is valuable and to make lasting and vital change.

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The Muskrat Symbol Timeline in The Night Watchman

The timeline below shows where the symbol The Muskrat appears in The Night Watchman. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant
Power, Solidarity, and Community Action Theme Icon
Oppression and Supposed Good Intentions Theme Icon
Agency and Exploitation Theme Icon
...lucky to have gotten his own job at the plant. His name came from the muskrat, wazhashk, a “lowly,” industrious rodent that loves water. (full context)
The Beginning
Power, Solidarity, and Community Action Theme Icon
...but when they dove, none could find the bottom. Finally, the creator landed on the muskrat, and when the muskrat dove, it came back up drowned but with a little bit... (full context)
Thomas
Power, Solidarity, and Community Action Theme Icon
Oppression and Supposed Good Intentions Theme Icon
Agency and Exploitation Theme Icon
...at the jewel bearing plant. At the bottom of his timecards, he signs himself “the muskrat,” accompanied by a drawing of a muskrat. He’d been cleared after the stroke, but sometimes... (full context)