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
Two Mormon missionaries arrive at Thomas’s house. When Senator Watkins’s name is brought up, Thomas asks them why he wants to terminate Native people. One of the elders says that Watkins doesn’t want that at all. Thomas says he wants to know who Senator Watkins is and what his message is. One of the elders hands Thomas a small book with a black cover. As they walk away down the road, the elders walk in a straight line, side by side, “full of mystifying purpose.”
The Mormon missionaries walk away from Thomas’s house “full of mystifying purpose,” a statement that hints at the idea that the Mormon missionaries—and maybe, by extension, Arthur Watkins as well—do what they do, however wrongheaded or misguided it might be, out of sincere conviction rather than manipulative maneuvering.
Themes
