73 pages • 2 hours read
Richard WagameseMedicine Walk
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 18-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary
Eldon tells Frank about Frank’s mother, Angie Pratt. By the time Eldon met Angie, he had become a drunk and part-time laborer. One day in a bar, a man named Bunky sat down across from Eldon. They both notice a beautiful Indigenous woman who is dancing with some lumberjacks. A man named Everett Eames enters the bar wanting to celebrate, but the lumberjacks pour beer over him, and Angie begs them to stop. Bunky stands up to the lumberjacks, and they back down. Both Angie and Eldon congratulate Bunky on his courage: “That was the bravest thing” (182), Angie says to Bunky.
Chapter 19 Summary
Bunky and Angie (who is now living with Bunky) pick up Eldon and take him back to Bunky’s farm, where Bunky wants Eldon to fence in a field. Angie brings Eldon lunch and talks to him. She tells Eldon she is Cree and discusses her life as a cook working in logging camps. Eldon feels incapable of talking to her and expressing how he feels. That evening, she tells a story to Eldon and Bunky about a mermaid, and it makes Eldon cry. The next day, she comes to bring Eldon lunch again in the field. She understands why her story made him cry and explains to Eldon that he draws circles because he can’t find words for his feelings. She senses that Eldon has the same courage as Bunky. She kisses Eldon, and as she walks away, she seems to blend with the tall grass. Eldon sleeps in the barn, and she comes to him that night and kisses him again. As she leaves, she says mysteriously, “Don’t break the circle” (199).
Chapter 20 Summary
Although Bunky notices that Eldon has stopped drinking alcohol, Bunky doesn’t know it’s for Angie’s sake. Angie watches Eldon work, and Eldon guesses that she likes him because Eldon reminds her of her father. She is pleased and admires him for his insight: “I told you there was more to you” (202), she tells him. She urges Eldon to tell stories: “When you share stories you change things” (203). She touches his leg and says that if he told her more, she would grow bigger with knowledge of him. They kiss again and make love on the ground. They both wonder how they will tell Bunky. That evening, Bunky pays Eldon generously for his work. Eldon goes for a walk alone, refusing Angie’s offer to accompany him. He is upset and “tasted a cry building at the back of his throat” (207). He is afraid Angie will choose to stay with Bunky because Bunky has property and is safe. That night, she comes to Eldon and they make love again. Bunky discovers them.
Chapter 21 Summary
Bunky, Angie, and Eldon sit at the table in the house and talk about what happened. Bunky is upset and angry. Angie explains, “Sometimes things come along of their own accord” (212). She loved Bunky, but she cannot help her love for Eldon, and Eldon feels the same way about her. Bunky understands and gifts them one of his trucks, but Bunky threatens Eldon with harm if he ever lets Angie down. Eldon and Angie drive away together.
Chapters 18-21 Analysis
Bunky is a man of integrity, courage, and wisdom. When someone wrongs him, Bunky does not strike back with a matching wound. Instead, he acts generously. He tries to understand why Angie and Eldon might have fallen in love with each other. Although the idea is never stated, it is presumed that Bunky recognizes the shared, meaningful heritage between Angie and Eldon. Angie and Eldon see things in each other that Bunky does not possess despite all his good qualities.
Though Frank never had the chance to meet his mother, he appears to have inherited her wisdom and good values. Angie can see a person’s virtue despite appearances or shortcomings.
Angie is associated with spontaneous events that occur naturally, such as her love for Eldon. She represents the unity of human life and natural life, much like Frank who often feels at one with nature. After Angie and Eldon make love for the first time on the ground, Eldon watches her walk away and notices “the sway of her like tall grass” (189). It is this idea—that human life and natural life ideally should be one—that makes the mad love between Angie and Eldon seem positive. Angie and Eldon’s connection happens without planning—it is an event of nature.
The novel depicts several types of love. The love that Bunky feels for Angie is the same love that Bunky shows Frank. Bunky cares about Angie and Frank as members of a larger human family even though neither are connected to him by blood. As Angie puts it as she and Eldon depart, “[Bunky] can’t let me go without knowing I’m okay” (214).
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