The Night Watchman

Characters in this novel must contend with two regular struggles for survival. The first is existential and is the result of efforts like House Concurrent Resolution 108 (“the Termination Bill”), which will harm their community if the United States government dissolves their treaties and revokes individual tribal recognition. For Thomas, this would mean “eras[ing] as Indians him, Biboon, Rose, his children, his people, all of us invisible and as if we never were here, from the beginning, here” (79). The bill is cloaked in seemingly neutral, if not positive language, using terms such as “emancipation,” which Thomas quickly sees through. The bill puts Thomas and the whole community in a tricky position in which they must continue to seek financial support from the government even though the government has been responsible for not only taking their lands but also decimating their ancestors through colonial massacres and forced schooling. To fight this bill, Thomas must work with state governments, not because the state governments believe that the bill is wrong but because they do not want to take on the financial responsibility of providing for Indigenous communities. This fight is one that exhausts Thomas; it takes all that he has until he finally has a stroke on the way home from Washington. Even as the novel closes, Thomas begins to struggle with the long-term damage the stroke did to his mind

Additionally, Patrice embodies the struggle of living in poverty and having to work extra hard to provide for her family. For her, simply getting sick could be devastating for her family because “[i]f she got sick, there was no telephone to let anybody know. She would be fired. Life would go back to zero” (20). When Patrice is offered the job as the waterjack, she is at first vehemently opposed, but the money is far more than what she makes at the jewel bearing plant. She knows what it could mean for her family, so she decides to do it, putting herself last once again. Later in the novel, her eyes become infected, and she grows terrified that she may lose her job. It is a never-ending cycle and a constant battle to make sure that there is enough food, water, and heat for her and her family to persist, a struggle that is likewise shared with others on the reservation.

Government boarding schools for Indigenous people began in 1860 and lasted until 1978 and were largely seen as an assimilationist project with the strategy of “kill the Indian, save the man.” As with House Concurrent Resolution 108, the plan was to solve the “Indian problem” by stripping Indigenous peoples of their language and culture. In The Night Watchman, the story of the boarding schools and the lasting trauma experienced there comes through Thomas, LaBatte, and Roderick, who all attended the same school. There, Roderick was punished for something LaBatte did, and he was locked in the school’s cellar. Ultimately, he caught tuberculosis and died. His ghost regularly appears to Thomas throughout the novel, as Thomas grapples with his role in Roderick’s death.

Thomas goes to the boarding school because his family is barely able to keep from starving, and he knows that his departure would mean one less mouth to feed. His mother Julia worries that he, like Roderick and so many others, will not return. Because the schools have no regard for Indigenous culture, she decides to cut his hair herself, which is typically a symbol of someone having died, “a way of grieving” (99). She ultimately decides to “hang it in the woods so the government would not be able to keep him. So that he would come home. And he had come home” (99). Thomas feels the lasting effects of his experience, especially through Roderick.

Vera’s disappearance is a major plot point, and it draws clear attention to the danger of being an Indigenous woman. Most significantly, Vera’s attackers are not worried that someone will come looking for her.

In two instances, readers see Patrice and Zhaanat contend with the lack of care applied to a missing Indigenous woman. Patrice goes to the relocation office, but they are unable to tell her where Vera’s current whereabouts are, despite having set her up in Minneapolis. Patrice also explains what she saw in the Cities to Thomas, and he suggests that they go to the police. This shocks Zhaanat and Patrice because they know that, as an Indigenous woman, “she would be the one blamed and punished” (221-22). Being an Indigenous woman is an intersectional identity that results in both sexualization and fetishization.

When Barnes pictured an Indigenous woman, he imagines a stereotype based on commercial images. This image is shattered once he enters Patrice’s home, when he thinks that “[t]his situation was very different from the pictures on the fruit crates, and he hoped he was doing all right. It was as though he had entered another time, a time he hadn’t known existed, an uncomfortable time where Indians were not at all like white people” (83). Patrice’s lived experience provides a pointed contrast with Barnes’s vision.

It is not just Barnes that essentializes Patrice; it also happens when she enters Log Jam 26, and Jack hires her to be the waterjack. He consistently compliments her and objectifies her in this role, despite knowing that the previous waterjacks ultimately got sick because of the rubber suit. This poses a particular challenge for Patrice, as she is then tempted by the payment, which she ultimately accepts until she realizes exactly what danger she is in and escapes. Despite this, she still tries to save Jack by informing the attendant at the cage hotel that he is slumped over in a nearby alley.