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Chapter 15: Unexpected Reserves
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Unsheltered, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth vs. Comfort
Evolution, Adaptation, and Survival
False Promises and Hope
Consumerism and Greed
Human Connection
Summary
Analysis
Back in the 19th century, Thatcher recalls sleeping in a tree during the war with a feeling of safety. In present circumstances, the memory feels like an omen. Rose is upset: their cook is quitting and someone defaced trees on Landis Avenue with threats against Landis. Carruth has finally died, meaning Landis will be tried for murder. Rose and Aurelia pray he will be exonerated, as their friends the Dunwiddies share financial interests with Landis. Thatcher sympathizes with the tree vandals, having recently broke down at Mary’s house over Carruth’s death. Now, Thatcher tells Rose he will testify against Landis in the trial, on behalf of his friend Carruth. To Thatcher’s frustration, the defense plans to claim Carruth drove Landis to temporary insanity.
Thatcher’s memory of feeling safe in a tree highlights how it is possible to feel secure even when one is exposed, perhaps especially so when one is surrounded by the durable natural world. He seems to view the dream as a sign that he will soon be similarly unsheltered. Carruth’s death has definitively sullied Landis’s reputation regardless of his excuses. By dying, Carruth achieved his goal of emboldening others, like the vandals, to stand up to Landis’s tyranny. Still, Rose and Aurelia remain faithful to Landis but only because their friends financially benefit from Landis’s freedom. No longer able to stand this dismissal of his friend’s life, Carruth makes it clear to Rose where he stands.
Themes
Shocked and angry, Rose maintains that Carruth’s newspaper did real harm to Landis. Thatcher reiterates that fair critique isn’t grounds for murder. He insists on telling the truth. Rose looks like a scolded child. She tells Thatcher that Aurelia plans to marry Mr. Dunwiddie. To secure the family’s assets, Landis must remain free. Technically, Aurelia owns the house crumbling around them. Thatcher realizes Rose intends to leave him and cede control of the property to the Dunwiddie family. Though she doesn’t admit it outright, Rose intends to remarry Louise Dunwiddie’s brother Leverett, thus securing her future.
By defending Landis, Rose equates criticism and threatened financial interests with literal bodily harm, as has been the way of Vineland’s upper classes. Thatcher dismisses this as nonsense, since only Carruth is dead. Aurelia’s plans to marry into the affluent Dunwiddie family complicate matters, as Thatcher’s security seems to momentarily depend on Landis. Upon hearing Rose’s own intention to leave him, however, Thatcher realizes he no longer has family interests to worry about. In pursuit of financial security for herself, Rose leaves Thatcher homeless but also free to speak the truth without fear.
Themes
Thatcher appears in court to vouch for Carruth’s character. He describes his friend’s selflessness, bravery, and honesty, which cost him dearly. Landis appears diminished and avoids Thatcher’s gaze. Addressing the jury, Thatcher angrily denounces Landis, who killed a man out of fear of the truth. By defending himself by reason of insanity, Landis admits that he cannot distinguish between “myth and fact,” making him unfit to serve as Vineland’s leader. Acknowledging every citizen’s desire for a safe place, Thatcher insists that Landis is unable to provide such shelter. Having made his case, Thatcher thinks of Mary’s notion that daylight can only be felt outside the confines of security.
