Generational Trauma Theme in There There

In searing nonfiction essays during There There’s prologue and interlude, Tommy Orange offers up unflinching and gruesome depictions of the violence, cruelty, and attempted genocides which have ravaged and depleted indigenous peoples all over North, Central, and South America since the 1400s. With this legacy of generational trauma to confront each day, Orange suggests, modern-day Native communities increasingly turn to substance abuse and suicide to cope with the staggering weight of inherited pain, trauma, fear, and isolation. As Orange demonstrates the ways in which generational trauma influences the cast of characters within There There, he makes a larger statement about the pain Native communities have been forced to bear over the years. Orange ultimately suggests, however bleakly, that until there is a wider reckoning with the history of colonization, extermination, and assimilation Native peoples have been forced to endure, Native communities will become trapped in a vicious cycle of more pain and suffering.

In the book’s prologue, an unnamed narrator—perhaps Orange himself—describes the ways in which Native people have been brutalized and systemically attacked throughout American history. The narrator suggests that the widespread massacres and other attempted genocidal acts, orchestrated by American settlers and later the U.S. government, is itself the “prologue” to contemporary Native life. With such terrible weight to bear, pain, anger, and isolation have become the defining hallmarks of an entire community. Through the fictional character studies that follow, Orange illustrates this thesis, and shows how many of his characters have been brought to the breaking points of their lives by the sadness, suffering, and cruelty they’ve both witnessed and endured. The ways in which generational trauma manifests throughout the characters of There There is widespread and varied. Some characters turn away from their culture, such as Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, while others are desperate to connect with the rituals and traditions of their ancestors, such as Blue, Edwin Black, and Orvil Red Feather. Some characters struggle with substance abuse to escape the pain of their own lives and the lives of their parents and forbears, such as Harvey, Jacquie Red Feather, and Thomas Frank, while others, such as Dene Oxendene, seek to bring even the most painful, excruciating stories to light, believing that only visibility can combat the cycle of generational trauma. All of the characters are, in their own ways, trying to find a way to understand and escape the painful legacy they’ve inherited—though few of them fully realize at first just how difficult this task will be.

In a nonfictional interlude, the narrator resurfaces to describe the desire for community and recognition that has spurred the tradition of the intertribal powwow—and to foreshadow the violence that will take place at the Big Oakland Powwow, which all of the major characters will soon attend. Just as the narrator posited the thesis of “massacre as prologue” to Native life in contemporary America, he now suggests that the bullets which will be fired at the powwow were in fact launched many miles and many years ago. The second half of the novel is focused on the ways the traumas the characters have either been ignoring or trying to abate rear their heads at the powwow, the central event around which the novel is organized. As the characters within the novel travel to the powwow for various reasons—to seek out or meet family members for the first time, to attempt to be a part of Native culture in a new way, to make or steal money, to distract themselves from the mundane, lonely nature of their lives—it becomes clear that the inevitable violence which will mark the day has its roots in the generational traumas, intercultural resentments, and desperation which form the basis of the lives of these Urban Indians living in Oakland. The violence which takes place at the powwow—and other violent events like it—are all, Orange suggests, precipitated by the ways in which Native communities internalize and replicate the violence done unto them for generations by white colonizers, oppressors, and now gentrifiers. Because America has never reckoned with the sins it has perpetrated against the Native community, there has been no healing or change. The cycles of trauma, isolation, anger, and violence which serve as a “prologue” to these acts of violence will not stop, Orange suggests, until there is a major shift in how indigenous people not just in the Americas, but around the world, are seen and treated.

The novel ends in a crescendo of violence inflicted on members of the Native community by members of the Native community. Tony Loneman, in full regalia, tries to rob members of his own community. Meanwhile, Calvin Johnson and his brother, Charles, wound or kill elders and acquaintances as they fire on their accomplices in the robbery, Octavio and Carlos. The pain that ripples through the powwow is shocking and heartbreaking, but, it is suggested, not all that surprising in the end; when Opal hears the shots ring out, she seems almost resigned to or exhausted by the fact that someone has come to kill more Native people. With violence as a “prologue” to modern-day configurations of Native communities, Orange suggests through his novel’s painful climax, only more violence—physical, emotional and psychological—will spawn until there is a shift in American culture to lend more resources, empathy, and indeed even reparations to Native people.

Generational Trauma ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Generational Trauma appears in each chapter of There There. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.

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Chapter

Generational Trauma Quotes in There There

Below you will find the important quotes in There There related to the theme of Generational Trauma.

There was an Indian head, the head of an Indian, the drawing of the head of a headdressed, long-haired Indian depicted, drawn by an unknown artist in 1939, broadcast until the late 1970s to American TVs everywhere after all the shows ran out. It’s called the Indian Head test pattern. It you left the T V on, you’d hear a tone at 440 hertz—the tone used to tune instruments—and you’d see that Indian, surrounded by circles that looked like sights through riflescopes. There was what looked like a bull’s-eye in the middle of the screen, with numbers like coordinates. The Indian’s head was just above the bull’s-eye, like all you’d need to do was nod up in agreement to set the sights on the target. This was just a test.

Page Number and Citation: 3-4

Explanation and Analysis:

Tommy Orange’s novel There There opens with this passage, in which an unnamed narrator—possibly Orange himself—describes the disembodied (and arguably targeted) Indian head which appeared on television test patterns in the mid-twentieth century. In the brief essay that follows, the narrator describes the myriad ways in which images of Native Americans have been mutilated and commodified—often simultaneously—in mainstream white American media and public thought. The violence inflicted on Native people for centuries is not just physical, though the attempted genocides and nonstop vicious attacks on Native people and Native lands are innumerable and devastating in scope; a more insidious form Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possi

Getting us to cities was supposed to be the final, necessary step in our assimilation, absorption, erasure, the completion of a five-hundred-year-old genocidal campaign. But the city made us new, and we made it ours. We didn’t get lost amid the sprawl of tall buildings, the stream of anonymous masses, the ceaseless din of traffic. We found one another, started up Indian Centers, brought out our families and powwows, our dances, our songs, our beadwork.

Page Number and Citation: 8-9

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, the narrator—describing the Indian termination policies under which the federal government first attempted to assassinate, and then attempted to assimilate, Native Americans in order to effectively erase their culture and cultural memory from the country’s history—outlines the “final, necessary step” in these policies: moving Native people into cities. The narrator somewhat triumphantly—but not without exhaustion—notes that these policies ultimately failed. Rather than being absorbed by the “sprawl” of major American cities, Native people still found a way to connect with one another and keep their cultures alive even in an environment which their oppressors hoped would keep Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut.

“There is no there there,” [Rob] says in a kind of whisper, with this goofy openmouthed smile Dene wants to punch. Dene wants to tell him he’d looked up the quote in its original context, in her Everybody’s Autobiography, and found that she was talking about how the place where she’d grown up in Oakland had changed so much, that so much development had happened there, that the there of her childhood, the there there, was gone… […] Dene wants to tell him it’s what happened to Native people, he wants to explain that they’re not the same, that Dene is Native, born and raised in Oakland, from Oakland. Rob probably didn’t look any further into the quote because he’d gotten what he wanted from it.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Rob

Page Number and Citation: 38-39

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, Dene is at a building in downtown Oakland, preparing to present his project proposal before a panel in hopes of securing an arts grant to make the movie his uncle Lucas could never finish—a movie about Native stories, told raw and unedited. While waiting to go in to face the judges, a white hipster also interviewing for the grant talks at Dene more than to him about Oakland and how fast it’s changing. Dene, perceiving the man—Rob—as a gentrifying force with no real knowledge of Oakland’s history or investment in its future, becomes angry when Rob quotes Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetu

[Norma] was crying. Dene […] thought about what it might have meant to her, losing her brother. How wrong it’d been that he’d left, like it was his loss alone. Norma crouched down and put her face in her hands. The camera was still running. He lifted it, pistol-gripped, pointed it at her, and looked away.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Norma, Lucas

Page Number and Citation: 38-39

Explanation and Analysis:

As Dene reflects on his uncle Lucas’s death, he remembers the first thing he ever filmed on the camera he inherited from the man: his mother, Norma, crying as she lamented her brother’s death. This quotation puts into perspective who Dene is at the start of the novel, and just how deeply he’s committed to his role as a storyteller in his community. Dene is—and, judging by this passage, always has been—committed to capturing even the painful parts of the Native experience in all its shapes and shades. Dene chose to film his mother in a moment of pain rather Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessita

“One of the last things Mom said to me when we were over there, she said we shouldn’t ever not tell our stories,” I said.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” “I mean having the baby.”

“It’s not a story, Opal, this is real.”

“It could be both.”

“Life doesn't work out the way stories do. Mom’s dead, she’s not coming back, and we’re alone, living with a guy we don’t even know who we’re supposed to call uncle. What kind of a fucked-up story is that?”

Related Characters: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (speaker), Jacquie Red Feather (speaker), Vicky, Ronald

Page Number and Citation: 60

Explanation and Analysis:

After a strange, brief stint as part of a massive protest on and occupation of Alcatraz Island with their mother, half-sisters Jacquie and Opal return to the mainland and within months must bury their mother after she dies of cancer. Jacquie, pregnant after an assault on the island, tells Opal that she wants to terminate the pregnancy—but Opal urges Jacquie to keep the baby, as it’s part of her “story” now. As Jacquie points out how messed up the girls’ stories are so far, the passage connects to several of the novel’s major themes. Storytelling is an essential part of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Vol

Jacquie kneeled in front of the minifridge. In her head she heard her mom say, “The spider's web is a home and a trap.” And even though she never really knew what her mom meant by it, she’d been making it make sense over the years, giving it more meaning than her mom probably ever intended. In this case Jacquie was the spider, and the minifridge was the web. Home was to drink. To drink was the trap. Or something like that. The point was Do not open the fridge. And she didn’t.

Related Characters: Vicky, Jacquie Red Feather

Related Symbols: Spiders

Page Number and Citation: 101

Explanation and Analysis:

Jacquie Red Feather is eleven days sober when she arrives in Albuquerque for a professional conference, and is instantly tempted by a minifridge full of alcohol right in the middle of her hotel room. As Jacquie considers whether or not to give into her worst urges, she remembers her mother telling her about spiders as a girl. Vicky, Jacquie and Opal’s mother, revered spiders for their cleverness and industry—on their backs, for their whole lives, they carry a substance which is both “home and trap.” Spiders are powerful but also unreliable, and as Jacquie confronts her addiction in the context Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident

But his leg. The lump that’s been in his leg for as long as he can remember, as of late it’s been itching. He hasn’t been able to stop scratching it.

Related Characters: Orvil Red Feather

Related Symbols: Spiders

Page Number and Citation: 125

Explanation and Analysis:

As Orvil prepares to attend his first-ever powwow after months of studying Native history and dance on the internet, Orvil feels a strange itching in a familiar lump on his leg. Shortly after this brief passage, Orvil will pull several spider legs out of the lump—a mystical and symbolic discovery which will speak to Orvil’s own emergence as a member of his community and an heir to Native tradition, and indeed to all the unexplainable and occasionally traumatic mysteries of life as a modern-day Urban Indian. Orvil has been unable to stop “scratching” at more than just his leg of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusam

We all came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling strands of our lives got pulled into a braid—tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. We’ve been coming from miles. And we’ve been coming for years, generations, lifetimes, layered in prayer and handwoven regalia, beaded and sewn together, feathered, braided, blessed, and cursed.

Page Number and Citation: 135

Explanation and Analysis:

As the day of the powwow dawns, the narrative breaks off into a brief interlude which discusses many of the same major themes and ideas as the prologue. The concept of fate, pilgrimage, and a “braid[ed]” interconnectedness is introduced as the narrator discusses the many uncountable journeys people are making as they converge on Oakland for the powwow. Their circumstances are interconnected in ways they can’t understand or foresee—and are equal parts “blessed and cursed” because of this fact. Just as generational trauma carries an unbearable weight, the narrator posits that joyful pilgrimage, too, has a heaviness to it—the journeys Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident e

Something about it will make sense. The bullets have been coming from miles. Years. Their sound will break the water in our bodies, tear sound itself, rip our lives in half. The tragedy of it all will be unspeakable, the fact we’ve been fighting for decades to be recognized as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, alive, only to die in the grass wearing feathers.

Page Number and Citation: 141

Explanation and Analysis:

Just as the many individuals who are traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow have actually been on journeys longer than hours or days—their journeys to this exact moment in time have taken centuries—so too, the narrator posits, has the bullets’ journey been a long and even fateful one. The mass pilgrimage of Native people to the powwow feels joyful and celebratory, but the bullets’ journey there is a darker kind of fate. Though coincidence and chance are the ruling force of much of the novel, in this section, the narrator seems to be grappling with the parts of life that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt

Dene starts to say something about storytelling, some real heady shit, so Calvin tunes out. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna say when it comes around to him. He’d been put in charge of finding younger vendors, to support young Native artists and entrepreneurs. But he hadn’t done shit.

Related Characters: Calvin Johnson, Dene Oxendene

Page Number and Citation: 146

Explanation and Analysis:

At a powwow committee meeting where all present are asked to introduce themselves so that the new members can feel more at home, Calvin begins getting nervous as his turn to speak approaches. He is sitting on the powwow committee while also engaging in a plan to rob that very powwow—he is a traitor to his community and his people more largely, and on top of it all, he hasn’t even done the bare minimum required by his position on the committee. Calvin is disconnected from his cultural identity and indeed his personal sense of self—he feels isolated from everyone Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus

Opal pulled three spider legs out of her leg the Sunday afternoon before she and Jacquie left the home, the house, the man they’d been left with after their mom left this world. There’d recently been blood from her first moon. Both the menstrual blood and the spider legs had made her feel the same kind of shame. Something was in her that came out, that seemed so creaturely, so grotesque yet magical, that the only readily available emotion she had for both occasions was shame, which led to secrecy in both cases.

Related Characters: Orvil Red Feather, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, Jacquie Red Feather

Related Symbols: Spiders

Page Number and Citation: 165

Explanation and Analysis:

After Opal learns that her adopted grandson, Orvil, has pulled spider legs out of a lump in his leg, she is startled and spooked: the same thing happened to her when she was around his age. As Opal reflects on the frightening and strange incident, parallels and differences emerge between her story and Orvil’s. Though the emergence of the spider legs symbolizes, for both Opal and Orvil, their emergence into adulthood and their capabilities as leaders, Opal felt only shame and fear when she pulled the legs out. Orvil, on the other hand, felt hypnotized and vaguely proud. The twinned Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occa

“Now you young men in here, listen up. Don’t get too excited out there. That dance is your prayer. So don’t rush it, and don’t dance how you practice. There’s only one way for an Indian man to express himself. It's that dance that comes from all the way back there. All the way over there.”

Related Characters: Orvil Red Feather

Page Number and Citation: 231

Explanation and Analysis:

As Orvil Red Feather nervously dresses and prepares for his first dance in public at the Big Oakland Powwow, another dancer—unnamed but inspirational—gives a rousing speech meant to urge his fellow dancers to give it all out on the floor. The man suggests that the dances they’re about to perform are their legacies—precious gifts their ancestors have entrusted them with, which they use to express not just their own selves but millennia of tradition. Orvil, who has learned to dance from watching YouTube videos, feels a little bit like an impostor as he listens to the speech—he feels “dressed up” Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste.

To get to the powwow Tony Loneman catches a train. He gets dressed at home and wears his regalia all the way there. He’s used to being stared at, but this is different. He wants to laugh at them staring at him. It’s his joke to himself about them. Everyone has been staring at him his whole life. Never for any other reason than the Drome. Never for any other reason than that his face told you something bad happened to him—a car wreck you should but can’t look away from.

Related Characters: Tony Loneman

Related Symbols: Buses and BART Trains

Page Number and Citation: 234

Explanation and Analysis:

As Tony Loneman takes the train to the Big Oakland Powwow dressed in full Native regalia, he feels the familiar sensation of being stared at—but for a new reason. No one is looking at him because of his face, marked by “the Drome” (his nickname for fetal alcohol syndrome). Instead, people are staring in awe at his costume, which doesn’t tell anyone that something “bad” has happened to him, but still sets him apart in a different way. The buses and trains of Oakland’s public transit system are potent symbols throughout the novel of the intersection between public and private Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam

He crawls out through the black curtains. For a second the brightness of the day blinds him. He rubs his eyes and sees across from him something that doesn’t make any sense for more than one reason. Calvin Johnson, from the powwow committee, is firing a white gun at a guy on the ground, and two other guys are shooting on his left and right. One of them is in regalia. Dene gets on his stomach. He should have stayed under his collapsed booth.

Related Characters: Dene Oxendene, Calvin Johnson

Page Number and Citation: 270

Explanation and Analysis:

As Dene hears shots ring out on the powwow floor, he stays still in his booth—but when a bullet hits a wooden support and brings the whole thing crashing down, Dene crawls out of the wreckage rather than choosing to stay hidden inside. What he sees is confusion, misery, and carnage—he also notes that Calvin, whom he’s worked with on the powwow committee, seems to be at the heart of the violence unfolding all around. Dene, a storyteller and gatherer of experiences who has never shied away from looking a hard or painful truth right in the face, now regrets Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipi

[Calvin] looks over to Tony, who’s bouncing a little—he’s light on his feet like he’s ready to dance. Tony’s supposed to do the actual robbing. The rest of them are there in case anything goes wrong. Octavio never explained why he wants Tony in regalia, and why he should be the one to take the money. Calvin assumes it’s because someone in regalia would be harder to identify, and ultimately harder to investigate.

Related Characters: Calvin Johnson, Tony Loneman, Octavio Gomez

Page Number and Citation: 272

Explanation and Analysis:

As Calvin, Octavio, Tony, Charles, and Carlos prepare to put the robbery they’ve been planning for weeks in motion, Calvin reflects on the specifics of the plan. Tony, dressed in regalia, is supposed to do “the actual robbing,” while the others act as backup. As Calvin considers why Tony has been instructed to be the one to take the money—and why he should be doing it in regalia—he realizes that Octavio, in spite of having some Native heritage himself, is essentially throwing his Native accomplice under the bus. To Octavio, Native people are so invisible and interchangeable that he presumes Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut

She puts her hand over her mouth and nose, sobs into her hand. She keeps listening to see if it will clear up. She wonders, she has the thought, Did someone really come to get us here? Now?

Related Characters: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield

Page Number and Citation: 278

Explanation and Analysis:

As shots begin ringing out at the Big Oakland Powwow, there is confusion and disorientation among the attendees—but for Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, there is a surprising lack of shock. Opal is certainly upset and frightened, but she doesn’t seem totally surprised by the idea that someone would “come to get” a group of Native people gathered together. This quotation demonstrates that Opal—and no doubt countless others in attendance at the powwow—are so used to being the subjects of senseless but hateful violence that it almost seems fated or unavoidable when it does occur. Opal’s understanding that being threatened Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Ape

Tony plays with his Transformers on the floor of his bedroom. He makes them fight in slow motion. He gets lost in the story he works out for them. It’s always the same. There is a battle, then a betrayal, then a sacrifice.

Related Characters: Tony Loneman

Page Number and Citation: 289

Explanation and Analysis:

As he lies on the ground of the Oakland Coliseum, dying from gunshot wounds sustained in the powwow robbery gone awry, Tony Loneman recalls a single peaceful afternoon from his childhood. He remembers washing dishes with his grandmother and then retreating to his room to play Transformers. As he recalls the fantasy he constructed for his action figures, he remembers always putting them through the same scenario: “a battle, then a betrayal, then a sacrifice.” The arc of the powwow has followed this trajectory—after a face-off that occurred when Tony refused to take the lead and demand the safe containing Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non i

Generational Trauma Theme Analysis

Generational Trauma ThemeTracker

Generational Trauma Quotes in There There

Prologue Quotes

Part I: Dene Oxendene (1) Quotes

Part I: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (1) Quotes

Part II: Jacquie Red Feather (1) Quotes

Part II: Orvil Red Feather (1) Quotes

Part II: Interlude Quotes

Part II: Calvin Johnson (2) Quotes

Part III: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (2) Quotes

Part IV: Orvil Red Feather (2) Quotes

Part IV: Tony Loneman (3) Quotes

Part IV: Dene Oxendene (4) Quotes

Part IV: Calvin Johnson (4) Quotes

Part IV: Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield (4) Quotes

Part IV: Tony Loneman (4) Quotes