Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Word for World is Forest, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Violence, War, and Colonization
Nature and Ecology
Communication and Translation
Gender and Masculinity
Summary
Analysis
Captain Davidson thinks that everyone who was at the meeting has gone crazy. He can’t believe that a commander was bowing down to humanoids who clearly stole the idea for an ansible from humans. And things haven’t improved since the meeting. It’s fine that Davidson is now under Major Muhamed’s command at New Java Camp—while Dongh might have liked Davidson’s raid at Smith, he still had to punish him for it. Fair. But the orders from the ansible are insane. They’ve been told to limit contact with the Athsheans unless the Athsheans initiate it, and they can’t enforce labor—which means they can’t work efficiently. Clearly, the ansible messages aren’t coming from Earth, because Earth needs wood.
Again, Davidson’s distrust of “humanoids” points to planetary nationalism (a sense of identity and pride based on one’s planet of origin), which is apparently widespread among the Terran humans. This passage shows that Davidson did face consequences for his impulsive raid on Smith, and the humans are now facing consequences for their enslavement of the Athsheans. At the moment, it seems like the ansible is functioning as Or and Lepennon hoped that it would: the colonists have freed the enslaved Athsheans. That said, they’re still having a negative impact on the Athsheans’ lives, since the Athsheans depend on the trees that the humans log.
Themes
The messages also say that World 41’s colony status is “under consideration,” that colonists can’t use firearms, and that they can’t retaliate. Davidson assumes that humanoids have planted these messages, since the men on Earth are more practical than this. The Cetians are probably trying to take over the Terran Government, and the Hainish are in on it, since “rats help rats.” They’re planning to let creechies kill the New Tahiti humans, and Dongh is going to let them. Dongh told Davidson that he’s following Terra-HQ’s orders and that Davidson has to follow Muhamed’s. Davidson can’t betray humanity by following those orders, but he feels bad for Dongh, who isn’t a natural traitor like Lyubov.
Earlier in the novella, Davidson insisted that violence and dominance were natural and manly. The fact that the humans on Earth now forbid the colonists from acting violently suggests that the colonists’ violence is a choice they made rather than any natural, inevitable action. Rather than examine his own culpability, Davidson again blames outsiders, dehumanizing the Hainish and Cetians by comparing them to rats and suggesting that they’re plotting nefariously—when of course, the only person plotting is Davidson. The fact that Davidson is able to so easily dismiss the ansible’s orders as fraudulent again suggests that the ansible may not be the cure-all that Or hoped it would be.
Themes
Some people, particularly asiatiforms and “hindi types” are natural traitors, and euraf-descended men like Davidson are natural saviors—that’s just how things are. Davidson is especially annoyed that HQ removed the 10 Collie women in New Java and sent them to Central for safety reasons. But Davidson will get things back to normal. After the meeting, the men let the creechies out of the pens, and none were loyal enough to stay, the way even a monkey would have been. Now, the wild creechies have access to the formerly enslaved creechies who know the place. If Central burns, it’ll be the men’s fault. Davidson knows what the creechies are like—he saw the bodies at Smith. Ok had an arrow in each eye.
Not only is Davidson suspicious of non-Terran humans and the Athsheans, but he apparently also distrusts non-white Terran humans. (“Asiatiform” refers a person of Asian descent, and “euraf” refers to a person of European descent.) Davidson has a definitive image of what men should look and act like, and it’s now clear that there’s a racial element to this image. Davidson isn’t wrong that formerly enslaved Athsheans would provide valuable intel if the Athsheans were planning to attack—after all, Ben was part of the attack on Smith. But his comments imply that the Athsheans would attack out of nowhere, which doesn’t account for the humans’ culpability. For instance, Ok’s body doesn’t prove that the Athsheans are naturally sadistic—even though Ok didn’t like using violence against the Athsheans, he was in charge of monitoring the enslaved Athsheans, so his specific manner of death was at least partially a result of his own actions.
Themes
Despite the orders against retaliation, the men at Central have hoppers with guns to defend themselves. It makes Davidson excited to think about dropping “firejelly” and watching the creechies scatter, especially because he associates the thought with beating up Sam. According to some books Davidson has read, men are only men when they sleep with women or kill other men. Even though the creechies aren’t men, it’s fun to imagine killing them.
Readers have already seen that the Athsheans (indirectly) learned violence from Davidson. Here, Davidson suggests that his own violence was also a learned behavior rather than a natural impulse. Apparently, his hyper-masculine worldview comes from things he’s read, and human society allowed him to cultivate that viewpoint. Once again, Davidson insists that the Athsheans aren’t men, and he condescends to Selver by using the name the humans picked for him while he was enslaved. In contrast, the Athsheans have decided that the humans are men, complicating their decision to kill them.
Themes
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New Java is wetter than Central or Smith, though if you were in the forest during a monsoon, you wouldn’t notice the rain until you reemerged and got bowled over by it. Then you’d have to head back into the forest, where it’s easy to get lost. Unfortunately, Muhamed is a by-the-book commander. The only good thing about him is that he doesn’t radio Central often and he doesn’t like HQ’s orders. However, he obeys them when they come. Back at HQ, Davidson once saw papers that said that his own IQ was higher than Muhamed’s, but Muhamed still assumes he knows better than Davidson.
Earlier, Selver took shelter in the forest during a rainstorm. Davidson’s account of the same situation again demonstrates the contrast between the Athshean and human views of nature, as Davidson sees sheltering in the forest as a danger and a hindrance. Once again, the ansible seems to be functioning as Or hoped it would—Muhamed doesn’t like the new orders, but he’s following them. Even if Davidson thinks that he’s smarter than Muhamed, Davidson is no longer in a leadership position and thus can’t stop Muhamed.
Themes
Men at New Java distrust Davidson because he was the only man to survive Smith, but soon they’ll see that he’s not a traitor, since he knows they have to get rid of creechies to make this place safe. Davidson starts disseminating this message among the loggers, who have always hated creechies but never knew they were dangerous. Davidson also tells them that the humanoids want to wipe out the Terrans who are here for their own benefit, and that humans are outnumbered by creechies, which frightens the men.
This passage confirms that the ansible can’t fix the colony’s problems. The ansible is one source of information for the colony’s men, but Davidson has decided to become another. And even though he doesn’t have any legal power, he’s able to prey on the loggers’ fears of outsiders and render the ansible irrelevant. The ansible depends on the men acting in good faith, and Davidson won’t do so.
Themes
Even the ecological officer here, Atranda, hates creechies—to an absurd, extra-paranoid degree, actually, but he’s a good man to have around. Davidson doesn’t bother trying to get Muhamed on his side, since Muhamed is militant and doesn’t trust Davidson because of something related to Smith. But it will actually be easier to take control of Muhamed’s camp when it’s so well-organized than it would be otherwise. And Davidson will have to take over eventually.
Again, the ansible relies on everyone carrying out their assigned duties without overreaching. The fact that the ecological officer on New Java despises the Athsheans—even though his job involves protecting their habitat—suggests that this won’t be the case here. And ironically, the fact that Muhamed is carrying out his assigned duties actually makes it easier for Davidson to sabotage him. No matter what, the ansible can’t override Davidson’s desire for violence, which suggests that a genuinely civilized human race may not be possible within the context of colonization.
Themes
When Davidson has convinced a group of trustworthy men of the creechie threat, he takes them to a creechie town in the woods, which they burn together. When the creechies emerge, the men drop more fire. It’s not actually exciting, since it’s kind of like rat-hunting on Earth, but the creechies can at least fight back. This time, though, they don’t—they lie on their backs instead, a sight that makes one of Davidson’s guys sick to his stomach.
Once again, violence generates violence, as Davidson responds to the Athsheans’ attack on Smith with an attack on their village. The difference here is that the Athsheans in this village are clearly innocent, unprepared to fight, and willing to surrender by lying in the “prone position.” True to the novella’s established pattern, this attack on innocents will have violent consequences for the humans later on.
Themes
The men don’t take a female creechie to rape, since they agreed with Davidson that it was perverted. Perversions like homosexuality are normal enough, but it’s better to kill the female creechies and “stay clean.” When they get back, no one tells Muhamed about the trip. Davidson knows that the creechies will attack the humans soon enough, and then the men will know he was right all along.
Davidson had no issue raping female Athsheans earlier in the novella, so the fact that he claims that it’s a perversion now suggests that he was embarrassed by Lyubov’s interrogation at HQ and is willing to revise history to preserve his masculine image. He also sees homosexuality as a perversion, but one that’s more socially acceptable. Notably, Davidson’s anticipation of an Athshean attack hints that he may have raided the village to provoke retaliation. This retaliation would then confirm his prejudices against the Athsheans and redeem him in the eyes of his superiors. In other words, Davidson is aware that violence generates violence, and he may be using that knowledge to his own advantage.
Themes
