Mean Spirit Themes
The main themes of Mean Spirit are tradition versus modernity, exploitation, and survival.
- Tradition versus modernity: The oil boom brings an influx of white settlers to the Indian town of Watona, leading some Osage to abandon traditional ways, while the Hill Indians retreat from Watona and sever ties with the town.
- Exploitation: Osage characters are subject to exploitation and corruption from the federal government, lawyers, and oilmen throughout the novel, never receiving justice for the wrongs committed against them.
- Survival: The Osage struggle to survive as individuals as well as to keep their culture alive. In the end, the survival of cultural traditions proves essential to the survival of the Osage themselves.
Themes
Tradition versus Modernity
When oil is found under Osage land, the traditionally Indian town of Watona is flooded with white settlers looking to get a portion of the oil money. Many members of the tribe—who are now incredibly wealthy—begin to drift away from their cultural roots, preferring to adopt a more modern, white way of life. One such person is Grace Blanket, who, despite being descended from the Hill Indians and their rich culture, is uninterested in traditional Indian life. Instead, she uses her fortune to embrace modern conveniences, buying a giant house with Roman columns that she fills with European objects. As the Watona Indians begin to place more emphasis on material goods, the Hill Indians retreat from Watona, choosing to live in total separation from the town and the dangers of white influence. Their self-imposed isolation suggests that the moral degeneration and materialism of Watona are a disease that can affect anyone living in close proximity.
As the novel progresses, the drinking and gambling culture in Watona worsens until, by the end of the novel, the Watona Indians are gambling away sacred cultural artifacts with ease. Though some characters, such as Louise and Joe Billy, begin to turn back to the old ways, many of the Watona Indians have lost their deep connection to their culture and are eventually driven away from the land of their ancestors. By the end of the novel, the former Indian town of Watona is mostly populated by whites who want to rename it “Talbert.” The clash between tradition and modernity is best encapsulated by Nola, who, after following in her mother’s footsteps and purchasing a giant European-style house, has a mental breakdown upon realizing that she is surrounded by alien objects from a foreign culture. She runs away to live among the Hill Indians who have escaped the destructive forces in Watona by erasing the road that leads to their settlement, literally severing the connection between tradition and modernity.
Exploitation
As a novel based on real events, Mean Spirit cannot shy away from the rampant exploitation of the Osage people by both private citizens and the government. The very land that turns out to be so valuable is given to the Osage people through the Dawes Act, a law that greatly harmed Native American tribes by preventing communal landholding, reducing the size of Indian lands, and forcing assimilation into an American way of life. The land allotments that the Osage may pick from are initially thought to be worthless as they are unsuitable for farming. Once it is discovered that the lands contain rich oil deposits, the government intrudes even further into the lives of the Osage people. They are arbitrarily deprived of portions of their oil revenue because the government believes they cannot spend their own wealth responsibly. Though some might interpret these paternalistic restrictions as “well-meaning,” the results are undeniably catastrophic. Members of the tribe are routinely declared legally incompetent, and the management of their assets is handed over to white lawyers, many of whom conspire to legally seize as much of the money as they can. Several characters experience government interference; for example, Belle Graycloud’s land is cheaply leased out to John Hale without her knowledge or consent.
Through Nola’s guardian, Mr. Forrest, we see that these paternalistic attitudes toward Native Americans were harmful even when corruption was not a factor. Mr. Forrest does not deliberately cheat Nola out of her money but invests it poorly, greatly depleting her wealth. Even when the Native Americans are allowed to manage their own wealth, the government’s decision to withhold more and...
(This entire section contains 1026 words.)
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more of their oil revenue forces many people in Watona to take drastic measures. Several members of the tribe pay off their debts by taking out a loan from John Hale in return for letting him take out a life insurance policy on them, allowing him to profit from their murders.Mean Spirit contains countless examples of exploitation, and in the end the Watona people do not receive justice for the terrible wrongs committed against them. While this ending is tragic, it is faithful to the painful and exploitative history of white and Native American interactions.
Survival
One of the major themes of Mean Spirit is the struggle of the Osage people to survive. On one hand, the Osage are trying to literally survive in the midst of corruption and greed that threatens their very lives. On the other hand, the Osage are trying to keep their culture alive in a world that is growing increasingly hostile to spiritualism and tradition. Ultimately, we see that these two struggles are inextricably linked; survival for the Osage is contingent on the survival of the natural world that they are culturally and spiritually tied to. The mining of oil and subsequent degradation of the Osage lands mirror the moral degeneration of the Watona Indians, many of whom, adrift from their culture, fall into destructive habits such as drinking and gambling. We see the importance of a connection to the land through the character of Stace Red Hawk, whose distance from his homeland has, despite his best efforts, resulted in his spiritual and cultural alienation. He rediscovers his spirituality and connection to his people by retreating from the town of Watona and journeying through the hills.
Many of the Osage elders still recognize the link between the tribe and the natural world, which explains Belle’s outrage at the slaughter of sacred eagles and Michael Horse’s gospel. However, some younger members of the tribe, such as Belle’s grandson Ben, have drifted away from nature, as shown by his careless slaughter of an eagle. Though the people of Watona have encountered terrible hardship, they, like the nature that surrounds them, are resilient. Just as the bats in Sorrow Cave outsmart the hunters and Belle’s bees eventually return, the Osage people survive. Indeed, as the novel closes with the Grayclouds fleeing their burning home and leaving Watona forever, the only thing they have left to cling to is their survival: “The night was on fire with their pasts and they were alive.”
Themes and Meanings
Mean Spirit’s central theme is the recognition that the survival of Indian culture is dependent on the survival of the natural world. The discovery of oil and the subsequent intrusion of whites into the Indian life of Watona initiates the deterioration of the community. The obsession with material goods, drinking, and gambling separates the Hill Indians from those living in town. Grace, who has little interest in old ways, desires electricity and china. When her daughter Nola, feeling threatened by the frequent murders and pervasive greed, marries Will, she too chooses to live in a European-style house; she buys numerous glass figurines, although her husband prefers earth and clay artifacts. Grace is murdered, and Nola experiences a complete nervous breakdown, ending only after she has murdered her own husband.
Drinking is invariably connected with gambling, initially showing the Indian culture’s lack of emphasis on material goods. Hogan says that the novel’s Indians have no concern about losing their possessions and merely enjoy the game of gambling; however, the pleasure in betting grows out of control, until men are gambling away their sacred pipes and women their sacred dancing shawls. The moral deterioration of the community is followed by many murders, a literal extinction of the people. Seventeen murders in six months have occurred near the start of the novel, and numerous characters die during the story. The Indians in town simply disappear. Originally, the town had belonged to the Indians, but now the still-living characters of the novel walk the streets of town surrounded by all peoples but Indians.
This crumbling of the Indian community is paralleled and intertwined with the desecration of the earth. As Hogan sets the scene in the first pages of the novel, the oil pumps rise and fall in the continual draining of crude oil from the earth, and a burned forest stretches across the horizon in the morning light. Right across the road is Belle Graycloud’s house. Grace Blanket’s “Barren Land” becomes “Baron Land”; the earth, originally believed poor and useless, is actually pulsing with an undercurrent of rich oil. Hogan elucidates the irony as the land, suddenly viewed as rich, is drained of its resources and made poor again. The drilling creates huge craters in the surface that Belle sees as gouges and wounds. Fires and explosions are common occurrences, destroying the earth and its creatures as quickly as greed destroys the Indian people. An explosion wakes the Catholic priest Father Dunne one night as he is sleeping outside; sure that the Earth is singing some glorious message, he goes to Michael Horse to confer. Horse, sadly, knows that the priest is mistaken and that the Earth merely cries out in pain.
Horse all along writes the happenings of Watona down in his journals, but he is also writing “the Gospel according to Horse,” for he desires to “correct” the omission of some things. The priest repeatedly goes to the Hill Indians with his personal revelations, revelations that even the children of the Hill settlement have known as truths all along: “The snake is my sister,” he says, and a child replies, “Yes, but what did you learn that is new?” Horse’s gospel begins “Honor thy father sky and mother earth. . . . Live gently with the land.” A belief in dominion over the Earth and a blindness to its destruction are characteristics Hogan attributes to the white culture. The destruction of the Earth brings the destruction of the Indian people and their culture and eventually threatens all people. Endurance and continuance are key to the cyclical pattern of existence. The bats survive, the bees return, and, though the Grayclouds are forced to flee in the middle of the night, they survive.