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
Thomas and the tribal judge, Moses Montrose, meet at their meeting hall, which is really Henry’s Café. They talk about getting a new door for the jail, which has recently been kicked in, but the tribe is broke. Moses then tells Thomas that he has seen the copy of a proposed bill that aims to “emancipate” Native people. When Thomas says he remembers hearing the word “emancipate,” Moses says he’s read the entire bill, and it amounts to the same thing.
The true, destructive, and dehumanizing intentions of the Termination Bill are cloaked in the language and rhetoric of empowerment and helping. The word “emancipate” in particular echoes the Emancipation Proclamation, shrouding the racism of the bill’s authors and supporters behind a scrim of wordplay and the pantomime of supposed good intentions.
Themes
