63 pages • 2 hours read
James WelchWinter In The Blood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Fish
One repeating symbol in the novel is that of fish. The narrator tells an extended tale early in the book about the history of fish in the river and on the reservation, explaining that pollution from a factory upriver eliminated the fish populations. When the factory went out of business seven years before the events of the novel, local residents assumed the water would clear, but it never did. The narrator explains that “the white men from the fish department” tried to fix the problem by conducting tests and adding fish to the water, hoping they would repopulate the spoiled water, but nothing worked. The narrator claims, “the river ignored the fish and the fish ignored the river; they refused even to die there. They simply vanished” (4). Despite the detail and specificity with which the narrator describes these events, the presence of fish in the area repeatedly comes up in ways that contradict his knowledge.
One such conversation takes place in Malta on the day the narrator meets the barmaid and the airplane man. He talks at length with the other men about fishing in the area, with the strangers claiming to have caught many fish the day before. The narrator insists that there are no fish, and specifically not the varieties of fish that the men claim to have caught, but they insist not only that there are plenty of fish, but that the water, which the narrator describes as muddy is actually “clear and cold” (38). The narrator’s claims of a total lack of fish are somewhat contradicted by Lame Bull, too, who claims to have caught a few, though he concedes that they are muddy and not firm.
Further, the medicine man who predicted the arrival of the Long Knives before the harsh winter that killed the old woman’s husband was named Fish. The medicine man accurately predicted the arrival of the white men, but the prediction spurred the tribe into a last-minute relocation that ultimately led to the deaths of many tribe members. The connection between the medicine man and the contradicting reports of fish in the rivers and reservoirs complicates the common trope of Indigenous Americans being mystically connected to the land; additionally, the repetition of the debate adds to the sense of surrealism and disorientation that the narrative effects. The narrator feels certain that he is right about the resources of the land he was born and raised on, but he is constantly contradicted by white men and women who claim that the water is unspoiled and rich with aquatic life. If the narrator is right, then the fish become a symbol of the way white culture has imposed a false narrative onto indigenous peoples. If the narrator is wrong, then the fish are symbolic of another way in which his unreliable memories have shaped his skewed perception of both the immediate and wider world. The novel never resolves this conflict, but the fish persist as a symbol of knowing, ways of knowing, and what knowledge we value.
Cars
Cars are another consistent symbol within the novel. In an explicit way, cars represent freedom and independence. For example, during the narrator’s first visit to Yellow Calf, the men discuss how much easier life would be if one or both of them had a car. Yellow Calf says that if the narrator had a car, he could drive the older man to town for supplies. At multiple points in the text, the ability to fix cars (and similar machines) is prized, particularly when it comes to First Raise, who the narrator claims could “fix anything made of iron” (59). Similarly, Larue Henderson’s skill with cars is prized. As with the story of First Raise charging a white man a dollar to kick his baler and nineteen dollars for knowing where to kick, Larue’s mechanical expertise is connected to profit: after telling a customer to “watch that fan belt. I seen healthier looking fan belts in my life,” Larue bills the man another dollar for the advice.
Cars as a tool for independence come into play when the narrator runs into the airplane man for the second time in Havre. The airplane man plans for the narrator to drive him to Canada, where he can catch a private plane and escape the law. The narrator says that he doesn’t have a car; the airplane man promises to buy one and allow the narrator to keep it. This generosity sways the narrator, but it is quickly revealed to be limited when the airplane man buys a cheap car that barely runs. Cars promise independence and the narrator has one in his hands, but the vehicle has to be repaired immediately. This is a bad-faith fulfillment of a promise and greatly diminishes the narrator’s compensation for undertaking a dangerous and illegal enterprise for the airplane man; indeed, this car only represents a future for the airplane man and will not serve the narrator in his own journey towards self-actualization.
Things go wrong in Havre—the narrator is beaten up by Agnes’s brother and the airplane man is arrested by the police and government agents. After the incident with Marlene in the hotel room, the narrator leaves the car behind in town and heads home on foot. Later, the narrator reveals that Mose was killed when a car hit him and the horse he was riding, which complicates the value and desirability of cars in the narrative. Cars may provide independence, but one of them was responsible for the loss of the person the narrator loved most in the world. This, along with the airplane man’s scheme, also raises the question of whether independence can be attained without harming another. The narrator’s choice to leave the airplane man’s car behind in Havre and walk home reflects his ambivalence towards cars, what they provide, and what they have taken away.
Nature
Nature is a common motif in works depicting Indigenous American people. As Joy Harjo points out in the novel’s Foreword, Winter in the Blood complicates the trope through its use of an antihero: “This protagonist is not a savior. He doesn’t fit the romantic notion of a spiritual savage who lives freely in a natural setting” (vii). Though the narrator does not fulfill this stereotype or uphold the trope, his closeness to or distance from nature is used throughout the novel to shape his experience. As the novel opens, the narrator describes the arduous journey home, referencing the decaying environment: a dried up prairie and a cloudy river. He compares this stultifying landscape to the community: “The country had created a distance as deep as it was empty, and the people accepted and treated each other with distance” (2). Despite this, the narrator’s frame of mind is more centered in this remote land than it is when he is in town and surrounded by others. Descriptions of the natural world are vivid and detailed, in contrast to the superficial and perfunctory descriptions of the places the narrator visits in town.
The narrator reads the signs of the natural world throughout the novel to predict weather or comment on the change of seasons and what that will mean for the ranch. Additionally, the narrator finds peace or catharsis in nature on some occasions towards the end of the book. One of these is the rush of empathy the narrator experiences for Bird, something he thinks of in vivid natural imagery:
Finally you found yourself standing under a hot sun in the middle of a field of foxtail and speargrass, wheezing desperately to suck in the heavy air of a summer’s afternoon. Not even the whirr of a sage hen as it lifted from a clump of rosebush ten feet away could make you lift that young tired head, (115)
Of particular note is the emotional experience that the narrator has while trying to save the cow from the sucking mud. Exhausted, the narrator struggles to pull himself out of the mud. Moments later he lies again on the ground, stiff and tired. He notices lightning and the sounds of the animals: bird grunting, the cow’s quiet, the calf’s hopeful call, and the metallic, “almost conversational” cry of a magpie. Despite his painful and exhausting situation, he is awed by the driving rain and remarks that some people have never experienced this kind of storm, and never will.
Though the narrator seems to think he prefers town to the ranch, his time in Malta, Harlem, and Havre is loaded with confusion, contradiction, and violence. The natural world that surrounds his home provides him with honest work, freedom from the manipulations and dishonesty of others, and the comfort of familiarity. The narrator’s insistence that Agnes should “settle down,” his decision to bring her home with him to the ranch, and his concluding resolution to marry her suggest that the narrator imagines an adult life for himself that mirrors his childhood on the ranch.
