34 pages • 1 hour read
Reservation Blues
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 6-8 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: "Falling Down and Falling Apart"
The chapter opens with Robert Johnson, who is safe at Big Mom’s house. He is relieved to have gotten rid of the burden of his guitar, but feels that he guilty that he given the Indians, and especially Victor, his burden.
Thomas goes to church with Chess and Checkers and feels uncomfortable during the service. He talks to an old Indian woman, who tells him that people on the reservation are unhappy with the Coyote Springs. The community doesn’t like the way they are representing the reservation and is especially displeased about the white women in the band.
Junior and Victor have been constantly drunk since receiving their money from the show in Seattle. At the Trading Post, where they have gone to buy beer, they get into a fight with Michael White Hawk. Betty and Veronica try to break up the fight and are injured. The men are taken to the hospital. There, the Indian EMT reports that the men’s injuries are from a car wreck in order to protect White Hawk from the white legal system. Betty and Veronica decide that the reservation is not what they were expecting, and they leave.
Dislike of Coyote Springs continues to grow on the reservation. They are unable to book shows, and their future seems uncertain until a large Cadillac arrives in town. Two record executives from New York, ominously named Phil Sheridan and George Wright, are interested in the band. The narrative is interrupted by a fax from the record executives to Calvary Records, in which they plan to capitalize on the band’s “Indian angle.”
Checkers tells Father Arnold that she has rejoined the band, and, during the conversation, she kisses him.
Sheridan and Wright tell the band that the label wants to hear them. They will all go to New York the next week, after the record executives return from seeing another act in Seattle, two women who are presumably Betty and Veronica.
After the record executives leave, Thomas receives a letter from Big Mom asking him and the band to come talk to her about the recording contract.
Chapter 7 Summary: "Big Mom"
Coyote Springs walks up the mountain to Big Mom’s house. Victor and Junior are skeptical of her and her power, however, when they meet her, she appears larger than life and omniscient. She tells Victor that he should forgive the priest who hurt him, saying that forgiveness will give him power over his abuser. She gives Junior a pair of magical drumsticks. She reveals Chess’s and Checker’s real names, Eunice and Gladys, and asks them to join her in the sweatlodge. Checkers reflects on the nature of her faith and thinks about how she could conceive of a God who is partially the male, Catholic version and partially the female, Big Mom version.
Big Mom wants to teach the power of music and to encourage Indians to turn away from violence and use music to heal their people. At one point, she even tried to teach Michael White Hawk to play saxophone, but he stuck to violence. Big Mom spends days teaching the band to play, and they get better and better. At night, Thomas talks to Chess about his fear of becoming famous. Chess is also worried. She thinks about how she is, and will be, controlled by the men around her and by the audience.
Eventually, Big Mom says the band has learned all they can, but Thomas doesn’t feel that they are good enough. He says that they have to be successful rock stars, or they will be hated by the reservation. Thomas wants Robert Johnson to help them, but Johnson stays in the woods near Big Mom’s house, trying to build a new guitar. He is worried about the band and thinks that they don’t understand what they are getting into. Everyone thanks Big Mom, and they head off to meet the record executives and fly to New York.
Victor is afraid to fly and, at first, refuses to get on the plane. Thomas offers him an eagle feather for protection, which he refuses, choosing to get drunk instead. When the plane hits turbulence, however, he asks Thomas for the feather. Thomas gives one to each of the band members.
Chapter 8 Summary: "Urban Indian Blues"
While Coyote Springs plays for Mr. Armstrong, the head of the record label, Victor loses control of the guitar, and Chess and Checkers cannot remember the song. Mr. Armstrong is not impressed and walks out of the room. Sheridan and Wright tell the band that their chance is over and that they will be sent back to the reservation in the morning. Upset and angry, Victor and Junior run off into the city. Chess and Thomas search through all the bars in the city looking for them.
Meanwhile, Victor and Junior move from bar to bar. Victor comments on all the beautiful white women in the city, which makes Junior reflect on relationships between Indian men and white women. He remembers Lynn, his white girlfriend from college. Lynn got pregnant and had an abortion. She wouldn’t marry Junior because he was Indian.
In the hotel, Checkers dreams of Sheridan, who talks about his centuries of crimes against Indians. Just as he is about to attack her, Wright opens the door to the hotel room and wakes Checkers from her nightmare.
Thomas and Chess search for Junior and Victor all night, only to find them sitting in the lobby of the hotel when they return at dawn. Junior explains that he didn’t drink so he could watch out for Victor. As they carry Victor into the hotel room, they are surprised to find Wright there. He says that he has come to apologize and that he is helping them because he owes them.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
Coyote Springs is in the difficult position of being distanced from the reservation while, at the same time, representing it. In church, Thomas talks to an old woman about how unhappy the Indians are with the band. When he protests, saying that everyone used to like them, she replies “before you left the reservation, before you left” (Chapter 6). By leaving and by including white women in the band, they have aligned themselves with the outside world, a world that is hostile toward the Indian community. At the same time, they act as representatives for their community and are under great pressure to succeed. As they leave Big Mom’s house, Thomas is afraid of disappointing the reservation: “What if we screw up in New York and every Indian everywhere hates us? What if they don’t let us on any reservation in the country?” (Chapter 7)
Throughout the book, names play an important symbolic role. Earlier, when Victor dreams of his family, he has “sworn never to say his parents’ names again” (Chapter 4). The dream’s emotional force derives partly from the inclusion of these names, which appear in bold in the text. Similarly, when Junior dreams of his family in the same chapter, he cannot recall the names of his brothers and sister. Chess and Checkers are known primarily by their nicknames and refuse to share their real names, even with the priest. In Chapter 7, however, Big Mom reveals the sisters’ real names to be Eunice and Gladys. There is a sense that to know someone’s name is to know that person intimately, to understand a deeper aspect of his or her personality. At the same time, however, names provide a label, a way for the outside world to sum up who a person is.
In some cases, names can also serve as a signal for the reader. Betty and Veronica, named after shallow, white cartoon characters, prove to have as much dimension as their namesakes. When the record executives arrive on the reservation, the reader instantly recognizes their names as being the same as those of the two generals who killed so many Indians, the generals who have appeared in many of the characters’ nightmares. The other characters, however, do not make this connection. This creates a sense of dramatic irony, in which the reader can see what characters cannot: the disastrous end that is likely to come from working with the executives.
Unlock all 34 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Sherman Alexie
