Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sign of the Beaver, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Indigenous Knowledge
Colonialism, Land Rights, and Entitlement
Nature
Friendship and Respect
Coming of Age and Manhood
Summary
Analysis
To Matt’s surprise, Attean returns the next morning. Instead of teaching Attean B, Matt picks up Robinson Crusoe and explains that it’s a story, not a treaty. He begins to read from the first page and then, remembering how boring he found the first chapters the first time through, he skips ahead. Matt finds the part about a storm at sea and reads about Robinson Crusoe struggling under the water. He can’t tell if Attean is interested or if he even understands, so Matt just says it gets better later on. But Attean surprises Matt by asking if Robinson Crusoe survives. Attean says he’ll return tomorrow so Matt can read more.
Matt begins to think outside the box. He realizes that Attean has no interest in learning to understand treaties, but he might be more interested in reading if he knows it’s possible to read for pleasure. Already, the boys are departing from what Saknis wants them to be doing. But while this may or may not help Attean learn to understand treaties, it seems likely to help the boys’ relationship to improve. Robinson Crusoe is becoming something they can both relate to.
Themes
The next morning, Matt picks the story up after the storm, when Robinson Crusoe rescues supplies from the ship before it sinks. When Matt stops reading, Attean says the “white man” isn’t smart, like Native Americans—Native Americans can make all the things they need. Annoyed, Matt writes a B on the birchbark. Later, he thinks about all the useful things Robinson Crusoe got from the ship, like nails and several axes. Matt and his father built the house and everything in it without nails, but Crusoe found a hammock to sleep in. Crusoe “lived like a king” on his island.
Matt and Attean come at Robinson Crusoe from very different perspectives. Matt recognizes that it’s possible to survive without things like a hammock or nails, though he’d rather have those items than do without. Attean, on the other hand, doesn’t see the point in salvaging things from the ship when the natural world offers all the tools a person needs to survive—if they know where to look.
Themes
