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Chapter 24
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wandering Stars, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonization, Racism, and Institutional Violence
Intergenerational Trauma
Addiction
Survival vs. Resilience
Identity and Cultural Erasure
Summary
Analysis
Opal Viola decides, when she first starts chemotherapy, to believe that it will work. Dying on the boys isn’t an option, she thinks. During chemotherapy, she also starts reading the pages from Charles Star that were in the box Maxine gave her. From those pages, Opal Viola learns about her great-grandfather, Jude, who survived the Sand Creek Massacre, and she understands that her family has endured more than any family ever should. But “surviving [isn’t] enough,” she thinks. Instead of just surviving, Native culture now sings and dances. If she survives chemo, Opal Viola thinks, she’ll have to come back even better than before.
Opal Viola voices one of the novel’s main ideas in this passage. While going through chemotherapy, Opal Viola decides that “survival isn’t enough”; instead, if she survives, she wants to come back better. The novel argues that that idea—that one can come out on the other side of profound suffering better than before—can be a guiding force and source of hope in the face of profound pain. Opal Viola says that Native culture has undergone a similar process; while Native culture has been systematically targeted for centuries, instead of just surviving, the culture continues to thrive.
Themes
Opal Viola goes “bald head and all” over to Sean’s to drag Orvil out of the house. She’s not sure what else to do at this point. She bangs on the front door. There’s a camera on the porch that swivels to track Opal Viola’s movement. Opal Viola is convinced that Orvil is on drugs. She thinks that after his prescription ran out, he turned to Sean to try and get what he was looking for. She imagines that Sean and Orvil are inside, passed out. The trip to Sean’s and banging on the door have exhausted Opal Viola, so she sits down and, without meaning to, falls asleep.
Themes
