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
Wood Mountain visits the baby day after day. And he starts to notice things about Vera: a ragged earlobe, a crooked finger, a missing tooth. They both watch the baby with a similar kind of joy. One day, Patrice comes home and recognizes it. Her feelings of confusion and desire and possible love for Wood Mountain go away. Wood Mountain asks to talk to Patrice. Patrice says she knows what’s going on. And that she’s not mad. She would welcome “anyone and anything that could help put together Vera’s demolished heart.”
When Patrice sees Wood Mountain around Vera—and sees how he cares for her, for the baby, and how that care might help Vera heal—her confusion fades, as she knows that the most important thing to her, more important than anything she might want for herself, and more important than her confusion about her desires, is for Vera to find a way to heal.
Themes
