People of the Whale

People of the Whale is a 2008 novel by Linda Hogan about a Native American man named Thomas Just who is forced to come to terms with his experiences in Vietnam during the war. The novel is separated into three parts. Its chapter titles are known to use a lot of colons, and chapters greatly vary in length from 2 to sometimes 30 pages.

Plot

The novel begins with a brief prologue explaining the history of Dark River, the fictional reservation where the main character, Thomas Just, is born. The day of his birth, Thomas’s mother holds him up to an octopus, asking for it to look after him, explaining that it knew his grandfather, Witka, a mystical man who used his ability to hold his breath underwater for long periods of time to act as the whale hunter for the tribe. As Thomas grows up, he loves the water like his grandfather and eventually marries a childhood friend named Ruth. They share an intimate marriage until one day at the drafts office, Thomas drunkenly signs up for the war with some of his friends, much to the sadness of Ruth. Ruth bears a child, Marco, named after the explorer Marco Polo, after Thomas leaves for Vietnam. Years pass as Ruth raises Marco; eventually the day comes when Thomas is supposed to return, but he does not. Instead, he disappears and is described as being “made up of lies.” Thomas has been changed by his experiences in Vietnam, and thoughts flow through his head, such as his cheating on his wife with a Vietnam woman named Ma, the sadness he experienced when the army took him away from Vietnam, and the faces of shot men from war scenes he was in.

The novel flash-forwards to the year 1988. There have been rumors around the tribe about a plot to kill a whale, and Ruth, attempting to expose that the whale killing is only for money, takes a stand against the council behind it, which consists mainly of Thomas’s old war friends. The whale hunt attracts the media, and Thomas, seeing this, decides to return to the tribe in order to try to find himself. He returns to the reservation, but refuses to talk to Ruth or Marco. The white men, led by Dwight, persuade Thomas to join them on the hunt. Marco has the job of listening for the whale, and on the day of the hunt, he is able to feel a whale as it approaches and expresses this to his father. When the whale appears, Thomas, without thinking, shoots the whale with his gun, and is suddenly flooded with harrowing memories of his experiences in the war. Chaos ensues the other men open fire on the whale, the canoe is flipped over, and Marco disappears. After returning, the men, excluding Thomas, carelessly leave the whale on the beach and go inside to watch a football game, causing Thomas to realize the tribe has abandoned its traditional values. Milton, one of the men who is mentally slow, says that someone with a big ring drowned Marco, but little of the tribe believes him.

Thomas subsequently goes into mental withdrawal and builds a fence around Witka’s home where he resides, further isolating himself from the rest of the tribe in the process. Dark River experiences a drought, with rain ceasing to fall and the ocean receding. Ruth decides to ask help from the Rain Priest, a mystical man said to be able to bring the rain back. She offers her boat, the Marco Polo, as sacrifice, and the Rain Priest arrives in Dark River and causes water to pour down for days. In the tribe, the rain reveals the history of the tribe – seashell buildings built by ancestors in the distant past believed to have disappeared. It is revealed that Thomas has made a sacrifice, just like Ruth: he commits to traveling to Washington D.C. to return his medals and tell the army the truth and then to fly to Vietnam to find his daughter, Lin.

Narration shifts to Thomas’s experiences in the Vietnam War many years ago. He is described as never fitting in with the other men, who disrespected the dead and didn’t mind the brutal violence of war. One day, Thomas’s troop flies to a wrong location, a town containing only poor children and women instead of an enemy camp they had been looking for. One of the troops, named Murphy, begins to attack an innocent young girl. As the others begin to attack other residents, Thomas suddenly fires his gun. He goes on to kill almost his entire platoon with little conscious thought, paralleling his jerk reaction of shooting the whale in Dark River years later. Thomas leaves his dog tags for the American army to find, disappearing into Vietnam society. He marries a local woman, Ma, and actively works to hide from being found by the U.S. Army. They give birth to their daughter, Lin, who Thomas attaches to over time. One day, however, Ma is killed by a land mine, and at her funeral, Thomas is found by the Americans and is taken away from his daughter, throwing him into sadness as he is forced away from a life he loves.

As if to symbolize Thomas’s removal from society, Hogan switches from the perspective of Thomas to the perspective of Lin. These chapters are some of the longest in the book and make up a lot of the second part.

Lin recalls her life as an orphan after the death of Ma and the taking away of Thomas back to America by U.S. Troops. She remembers how sad her father was as he rose in the helicopter back to the U.S. and how she waited for him to come back, always holding the red fish he had bought her years ago. Forced away from her village because of soldiers closing in, she is presented with gruesome scenes of violence and corpses. She is grabbed by one of the young soldiers; they stare at each briefly, but the soldier lets her go. Eventually, she travels to Ho Chi Minh City, where she makes a living sweeping the streets. There, she is able to win the favor of a man in a flower shop on the street; realizing that she is homeless, he takes her under his wing and provides her with food. His wife is initially reluctant to accept her, though soon she gains affection for Lin because of the hard work she does. As she grows up, her affinity for knowledge causes her to take secret classes and study different languages on her own. Lin also has a knack for connecting missing family members, a skill which eventually becomes her job. She also teaches English on the side and meets her future husband at one of the classes, who turns out to be the young soldier that let her go when she was running away from her village years ago. With her life now in order, she now resolves to find her father in America.

Lin leaves her husband to visit Thomas in Dark River. It is here that she meets up with Ruth, of whom Lin’s first impression is a strong, stubborn woman who stands up for what is right. Ruth is unusually enthusiastic to see her; she brings her to Thomas’s home, where a shell-shocked Thomas is unable to speak or express his feelings. Lin brings him a red fish as memory of when Thomas bought one for her as a souvenir; however, it only reminds him of war and the loss of Marco. Lin leaves and Ruth is angered by Thomas’s apparent dismissal of his own daughter.

In part 3, Thomas goes to Washington, D.C. with Dwight and some other men to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. At the memorial, Thomas solemnly reflects on his life in Vietnam. He is reminded of the barren landscapes bombed and defoliated, and the hostility of his unit. He sees his own name on the wall with a circled cross next to it, and suddenly begins to cry as he thinks about the people in his troop that he killed.

At the hotel, Thomas notices the ring Dwight is wearing, recalling Milton’s statement about Marco being held down by a man with a ring. He turns against Dwight and accuses him of murdering his son, but Dwight denies the idea. Because of this encounter, Dwight decides later that he needs to “keep a watch” on Thomas. Meanwhile, Thomas tries to return the medals he earned for his service in Vietnam at The Pentagon; this does not go as he had wanted, as the truth Thomas reveals is ignored by the men, who tell him to let the past go.

Back in Dark River, Thomas reconciles with Ruth. He explains that he wants to be remembered as a man of tradition rather than a man of war, and vows to get Dwight back for what he had done to the whale and their son. When he tells Ruth about how he shot the whale during the hunt, she gets angry that he went against Marco and dismisses him, though is partly understanding of his situation.

Thomas and his men paddle on a canoe out into the water. He begins to sing ancient tribal songs, and Dwight, jealous of Thomas and possibly intimidated by the threat he poses, suddenly pulls out a pistol and shoots Thomas. Thomas falls into the water, apparently unaffected spiritually, and dies. However, his spirit is later seemingly reincarnated into his body, and he awakes a new, whole man. Dwight is arrested by his own friends and is put to justice. Months later, Thomas visits Ruth and her boyfriend Dick Russell, expressing his gratitude for all that she has done for him and that he intends to travel to Vietnam to see Lin.

Characters

• Thomas - The protagonist. Born to the A’atsika people of the Dark River Native American reservation, he is the husband of both Ruth and Ma as well as the father of Marco Polo and Lin. As a soldier in Vietnam, Thomas never gets used to the constant violence and killing that comes with war, and he eventually ends up killing his entire platoon in order to prevent the attack of an innocent town. He disappears into normal societal Vietnam life and creates a family there, but years later the U.S. army forces him away. A Vietnam veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder, he is unable to face his old life or express his feelings. He attempts to reconnect with his tribe to resolve the conflict from within him, but finds the A’atsika people (mainly his old war friends who are corrupt and have accepted money from the Japanese to kill a whale) have abandoned their traditions. He goes into isolation after the death of his son, Marco, during the whale hunt, unable to face the ocean. Eventually, he resolves to return his war medals in Washington D.C. as a way of becoming a pure being of his tribe and letting go of his war life. He learns from the tribe elders about A’atsika traditions, and seemingly finds peace. When he is shot by Dwight, his spirit becomes one with the ocean, and he is reincarnated as a whole, harmonious human.
• Ruth - Thomas's wife and the mother of Marco. Born with gills, she has a natural affinity for the water, and ends up living on a boat, the Marco Polo, in the ocean. She is upset with Thomas’s decision to enlist in the army, and so when he goes to Vietnam, she has to raise Marco all on her own. A devoted traditionalist, Ruth heavily protests the councilmen when they accept a deal from the Japanese to kill a whale under the guise of “returning to tradition;” even when the men destroy her property, she persists in trying to get them to stop. She is unsure of her feelings for Thomas when he comes back to Dark River decades after he left for war, but still cares for him and brings him food and water. When Lin comes to find her father, Ruth is very welcoming and caring, and it is implied that Ruth’s friendly, almost motherly treatment of Lin is perhaps an attempt on her part to live vicariously through and be the parent Thomas never was, or is now incapable of being. When Thomas approaches her about their relationship, she is somewhat understanding, but angry when she finds out that Thomas went against Marco when he shot the whale. At the end of the novel after Thomas’s reincarnation, Ruth has moved on from loving Thomas in a romantic sense, but still decided loves him in a brotherly way.
• Lin - Thomas's bastard daughter from Vietnam. Growing up at a young age, she develops a special connection with her father, so when he is taken away by the U.S. Army, she is devastated. As an orphan, she is forced away from her home because of the war and makes a life on the streets in Ho Chi Minh City. With her clever intellect, she is able to gain the favor of a couple in a florist shop on the street, which provides her with shelter and food. She effectively makes a prosperous life for herself, taking classes and finding a job helping connect lost family members. When she travels to America to find her father, she is surprised that both America and Thomas are not what she expected – she had heard glorified things about both, yet both end up different from her expectations.
• Marco Polo - Thomas and Ruth's son, who is considered wise beyond his years. Raised from birth solely by Ruth, he shows a deep connection with the ocean, like his grandfather, Witka. Marco grows into a strong man, able to hear and feel the creatures in the ocean. He eventually learns he is destined to fulfill the role of listening for the whale during the hunt, an event in which he talks his father for the first time. When the whale approaches the boat, Marco senses the friendliness of the whale, much to the content of his father, but is drowned by Dwight during the chaos of when the whale is shot and killed.
• Dwight - The antagonist. From the moment they met as kids, Dwight has been jealous of Thomas’s abilities to hold his breath underwater. Because of this, he develops an increasingly hostile attitude toward him throughout the novel, first lying to Thomas during the war and telling him that Marco is not his son, then gradually coming to realize he needs to eliminate the threat Thomas poses because of Thomas’s continual reprimanding of his actions. Dwight becomes a corrupt councilman for the tribe and organizes the whale hunt for the reward of money, and he drowns Marco during the hunt as well. When he visits Washington D.C. with Thomas and the other men, he is confronted by Thomas about the killing of Marco. Dwight denies the claims, deciding that he needs to get rid of Thomas in case he is exposed. When the men are back at the tribe on a boat, Thomas begins to sing a tribal song, and Dwight, still jealous of Thomas, pulls out his pistol and shoots Thomas, a crime for which he is subsequently arrested.
• Witka - Thomas’s grandfather. Witka was a highly regarded whaler known for his mystic ability to hold his breath underwater for extended periods of time. Acting as the messenger between the A’atsika people and ocean life, he helped the tribe practice the tradition of revering the whales and ocean. He became acquainted with the octopus and found that it liked shiny objects such as pearls and rings.

Connection to Native American culture

Throughout the novel, bits of Native American culture are embedded and intertwined with Thomas’s story. Often, Hogan describes events from a perspective where readers must suspend their disbelief and look at the world from a different way (e.g. when Witka is able to seemingly communicate with his wife when he is underwater and his wife is on land, the fact Marco is able to see all life under the sea in visions, and Thomas’s reincarnation). The respect for whales and sea life stems from Inuit and Northwest Native American culture, where whales are believed to help people survive by offering themselves, therefore holding a position of reputation.^[1] This is apparent in Dark River, as whale hunting was a huge part of life for the Native Americans in the reservation, and they held whales in the highest regard. The A’atsika people sang many ancient songs that were passed down through many generations, which connects to the Native American tradition of expressing a tribe’s history through music. The concept of spirits and the spirit world is a big part of Native American culture – Pueblo peoples had rituals for the spirits while wearing masks (masks are found in the novel since Thomas’s father makes them), and Navajo beliefs included trying to maintain harmony with the spirit world. A lot of tribes believed in the concept of humans having one soul that perished with the body and another soul that lived on,^[2] which connects to Thomas’s soul living on after he was killed by Dwight.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

People of the Whale contains many symbols and motifs and also subtly conveys messages about Native Americans and relationships.

1. Water is used as an element to symbolize purity, honesty, and life. After Marco is drowned and the whale is untraditionally killed by Dwight and the other councilmen, the ocean recedes, as if to condemn the dishonesty in the tribe and the abandoning of tradition. When the rain returns, water pours down upon the tribe, revealing a whale killed by the white men as well as ancient seashell buildings built long ago. The water in a sense purifies the tribe, exposing how corrupt the men have been, as well as revealing more about the history of the tribe. The fact that Thomas cries as well when the ocean returns is a reference to water, since he at the moment promises to return his medals in Washington, an act of revealing the truth. The ocean also is the home to myriads of sea creatures, of which the people of the tribe revere. The sea represents life to the tribe, so much so to Thomas at the end of the novel that when he is killed, his spirit essentially becomes part of the water, as people of the tribe “saw him moving above water, dead, as if it was his soul, carried straight out to sea.”
2. The passing of time does not have any boundaries; we still contain the same roots inside us regardless of what we experience. This is shown in part by the octopus that appears multiple times throughout the novel. As an animal that is thought to be the Rain Priest, it appears during Witka’s time during one of his trips underwater, was present when Thomas’s mother held Thomas up and asked for it to look over him, climbed out of the Marco Polo after the returning of the rain to the tribe, and was rumored to have watched over Thomas after his death. The octopus is present through several generations from Witka to Thomas and Marco, and watches over Thomas during the course of his life. Because of Witka’s generosity years back, the octopus still watches over his family line, looking out for Thomas even when his life is torn apart by war; even after becoming almost an entirely new person, Thomas still is able to find and bring out his past since his tribal roots are uneroded by time, just as the octopus remembers its past with Witka and looks over Thomas. And even after all the years Thomas was at war, he and Ruth still retain the capacity to care and love. Though Thomas is initially traumatized upon returning to the tribe and Ruth moves on at the end of the novel from loving Thomas in a romantic sense, they both still show they care for each other and that time did not completely erase their relationship. Thomas learns to venerate Ruth as a person who endured many hardships when he was gone, and Ruth shows affection for Lin because she still cares about Thomas and wishes to at least be a parental, loving figure that he never was able to be for Marco. This shows that even though their love has grown distant, the capability of caring remains unaffected by decades of war and separation.
3. The clash of culture and world society. Throughout the novel, readers can catch a glimpse of not only how Native American culture has been affected by colonization, but also how Vietnamese culture was severely disrupted by war. The gradual disappearance of such cultures is demonstrated by showing how larger ones engulf them. White American men such as Dwight possibly could represent all American colonists that came from Europe – he nearly tears apart the traditions of Dark River through his organization of the corrupt whale hunt, hinting at how colonists subdued Native American culture centuries ago. In Vietnam, war completely eradicates many small cultures spread throughout the country, such as Lin’s. Thomas settles in Vietnam as a way of escaping from the chaos and isolation he feels from war and moving into a unified, intimate community. However, war eventually catches up to him once again, and he is forced out of this life, with the village itself being destroyed by war just a few years later. Hogan is able to narrate the story in a way where readers are able to sympathize with the Vietnamese and Native Americans since readers can understand their precious traditions by looking at life from another viewpoint. A culture serves the purpose of guiding a group of people with stories, songs, and activities – something that is clearly present in Dark River, but also in the village in Vietnam on a smaller scale, with the people sharing the common wish to just wanting to survive and stay away from war. The decline in these cultures conveys the detrimental effects of modern society on smaller cultures.
4. The concept of duality and doubles is omnipresent in the novel, especially in the description of Thomas’s experiences and character. Thomas has two lives, two families, and is a part of two cultures; many things in the novel are also viewed from two perspectives. For example, Thomas’s last name, Just, was given as a way of demeaning him, yet Lin looks at it as a name representing justice and balance, and Thomas’s massacre of his troop is described as dishonorable, yet “the only, the most honorable thing he’d done the whole time.” These dualities are symbolic of the conflict within Thomas – he struggles to resolve his two lives and find peace. By the end of the story, Thomas has corrected the imbalance in himself to become a whole individual again. He lets go of his war life but retains his experiences as a Vietnam villageman, and his two lives mix within him to ultimately make him spiritual and pure; his character conveys that the key to finding peace is to find balance within oneself.
5. Thomas shows his desire to prevent a loss of innocence throughout his life, with a prominent image of a fenced off land mine associated with it. In Vietnam, Thomas constantly disdains the violent practices of war, especially the killing of innocent Vietnamese citizens. When Murphy and the rest of Thomas’s platoon begin attacking the village, Thomas stands up for the innocent people by shooting his men. He also pushes the new, innocent soldier in his troop, Mike, to safety in order to prevent him from being hurt. Later, he wishes to build fences around the land mines planted by the American soldiers in civilian areas to protect innocent people from being killed. Eventually, the mines do take the life of someone innocent – his wife, Ma. His devastation after this event is understandable, as he is deeply upset that not only Ma’s innocence was taken, but Lin’s as well since Lin was exposed to such a sad event. His desire to protect innocence perhaps stems from his own loss of innocence; by being exposed to war, Thomas is deprived of his innocence through the traumatic events he experiences, and knowing how it feels, wants to prevent such a loss from happening in others. Upon returning to his tribe in America only to see that he cannot protect Marco’s innocence, he withdraws from society partly due to his failure to prevent so many peoples’ innocence. A loss of innocence is a loss of purity, so building a fence around his house acts to condemn the impure world he lives in; he can no longer face the clear water. Thomas is able to reach past this in the end and eventually become whole and pure, turning into a devoted traditionalist of the tribe who helps to spread faith, tradition, and honesty.

References

• Hogan, Linda. People of the Whale. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-33534-7

Footnotes