39 pages • 1 hour read
Louise ErdrichThe Round House
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 4-Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4
Though Joe’s father tells him not to get involved with Geraldine’s rape case, Joe now knows where the crime might have taken place: the round house. He determines to go to the scene of the crime looking for answers. He enlists the aid of his friends. Angus listens in on his father’s police radio and confirms that the round house is the scene of the crime. The boys set off for the round house to see if they can find anything that the police did not. Joe purposely arrives first and looks around. He feels the place speaking to him. Though he was not at the round house when the crime took place, he can sense what happened. He also intuits that the attacker had to have left some of his belongings nearby and so walks toward the lake. He keeps walking right into the lake where he finds a submerged gas can. This is probably the can used to cover his mother in gasoline.
Joe is overwhelmed with feelings when his friends arrive. He throws up, then tells them what he found. They, too, know the details of the crime, and they all agree to find the attacker and burn him. They decide to comb through the woods again. If the police did not find the gas can, what else might they have overlooked? The boys are plagued with ticks, however, and dive into the lake to try to drown the ticks. Angus later walks away to use the restroom and stumbles upon a chest with beer. The boys realize that Geraldine’s attacker probably left the beer and the clothes next to it.
The boys eventually leave, and Joe thinks how, in times past, they would have gone to his house for food. His friends also seem to know that things have changed as no one suggests going to Joe’s house. They decide to visit Grandma Thunder, an old woman who has a dirty mind and mouth. The boys are so hungry, however, they decide to suffer through the visit. After the visit, Joe returns home and overhears his father talking with his uncle about possible suspects. The priest, Father Travis, comes up during their discussion; both men suspect his odd behavior as a priest and his newness to the area. Joe eventually goes to bed, but is awakened by movement outside. When he goes to the window, he sees an old, scary image, like the one Randall described at the sweathouse, and realizes it is a ghost.
Joe tells his father about the ghost the next morning. His father is not surprised, however, as he has seen many ghosts from his time working in a cemetery. He says the ghost might have come for Geraldine, because of her grief, or because it has a message. Joe realizes that his father knew he was listening in the previous night after he casually brings up Father Travis. Joe tells his father that he, too, has news: he has been to the round house, and he has found the gas can used by the attacker.
Chapter 5
With Geraldine’s continued seclusion, Joe and Bazil replant her garden. They take out all the old vegetation, including her flowers that have died, and plant new ones. They are hopeful that she will feel happy about the plants, and when she gets better, she will not have to worry about the dead vegetation. Bazil is focused on the task at hand, though he says they will talk about the gas can at some point. Bazil leaves to get more flowers, and when Joe breaks for lunch, he takes his mother a meal. Entering her room, he notes how the air feels stale, as if his mother has sucked up all the oxygen. His mother barely acknowledges him, and her inexpressiveness angers Joe. He simply wants his mother to return to normal. He goads his mother into talking, but she realizes what he is doing and admonishes him for pestering her. Crestfallen and angry, he leaves her alone.
Joe and Bazil eventually sit and talk about the gas can and the round house. Joe is excited about his findings, but is hurt once again when his father admonishes him for going to the round house and meddling in the case. Bazil is proud of his son, but he does not want any harm to come to Joe. The attacker tried to kill Geraldine, and he could try to kill Joe. Joe, however, does not see reason. He wants to be treated as an adult and, angry with his father, runs off with his bike. He meets up with Angus who is on his way to church. They decide to investigate Father Travis as a possible suspect.
At church, Joe is overwhelmed when he sees Father Travis in person. He goes outside to rest and is given half a cigarette. Cappy, whom Joe has been looking for, goes off to find food for Joe as he is feeling sick and nauseous; Joe passes out. When he awakens, Father Travis is standing over him. They converse, and Joe asks Father Travis about his whereabouts on the day his mother was attacked. Cappy and Angus return, and Joe convinces his friends to help him spy on the priest. They need to determine what type of beer he drinks; they want to spy on him at home to determine this.
The boys go to Father Travis’s house during the evening and are attacked by dogs. They manage to escape the dogs, making it to the priest’s house, where, looking through his window, they find him watching Aliens. As none of them have seen the movie, they watch it. It seems that Father Travis knows they are there as he raises the volume. He prepares for sleep, as the boys spy on him. When he disrobes and looks in their direction, they panic and run. The priest, however, is much faster, and catches them. He makes them go inside and questions their reason for being there. The priest uses colorful language, smacking and kicking the boys, though his physical appearance and his “coolness” make them like the priest. He eventually gets Joe to admit that they thought him a suspect in Geraldine’s attack, something the priest had already deduced based on Joe’s odd questioning earlier. He finally tells the boys that he is not capable of such a crime. He also tells them how he obtained his wounds as an ex-Marine.
Chapter 6
With Father Travis no longer a suspect, the Larks come into play as prime suspects in Geraldine’s attack. Joe and Bazil decide to speak with Linda Wishkob. When law enforcement tried to speak with her, she blew them off. Bazil hopes that by bringing Joe he can appeal to her. They go to the local post office where she works, and though she tries to dismiss them, she eventually agrees to have coffee with them at a nearby café. To Joe’s surprise, his father and Linda talk about the weather the entire visit. He had thought his father would ask her specific questions about her family and/or the murder. Despite the odd meeting, Linda later arrives at the Coutts’ house and meets with Geraldine. Joe is shocked that Linda is so invasive, and that, despite everything, he overhears his mother conversing with Linda when she will not converse with anyone else. She has even been pushing Clemence away.
Linda arrives later in the week to speak with Geraldine again. Bazil suggests that Joe speak with Linda so that she might warm up to him and talk to them. Bazil and Joe know that Linda likes ice cream and so offer her some. She accepts, and is overjoyed that they like her banana bread. In this way, Bazil and Joe get Linda to talk to them. When Joe asks her about her adoption, she tells them her story. Linda reveals that she was abandoned as a newborn due to a birth defect. Her birth mother, Grace Lark, did not want her. As Linda was dying anyway, the doctor agreed, but the nurse saved Linda’s life. Then a hospital cleaning woman began nursing Linda and reshaping her misshapen body. This woman, Mrs. Wishkob, was later given Linda to raise, though Linda was taken away several times to try to place her with white parents. Linda grew up on the reservation and had no contact with her biological family. When her siblings moved away, and her adoptive parents died, she was given their land.
It was not until Linda was well into her fifties that she heard from her biological mother via a phone call. Though Linda hung up the phone, she eventually agreed to a meeting with her biological mother. At this meeting, Linda learned about her biological family’s troubles, including the fact that her twin brother, Linden, needed a kidney transplant. Though she disliked the Larks for abandoning her, Linda agreed to give one of her kidneys to Linden. It was because of this kidney transplant, however, that Linda became gravely ill from an infection, though she eventually recovered. While explaining this backstory to Joe and Bazil, Linda also recalled an event after the kidney transplant when she met with Linden while he recovered. When the two met, Linden seemed rude and insane, and told Linda about a young Native American girl he was seeing who was now providing “favors” for the governor. He also made mean comments to Linda, calling her ugly and unwanted, and admitted that he did not want a kidney from an ugly person. Linda told Joe and Bazil that she disliked being around Linden, and how, when Mrs. Lark died, Linden returned to South Dakota and did unspeakable things there, things he should have been caught for but was not.
Chapter 4-Chapter 6 Analysis
Struggling with his mother’s attack, Joe decides to take matters into his own hands by catching the rapist. He enlists the aid of his friends and they set out to try to find information the police may have missed. In these chapters, Joe indicates a sense of maturity by realizing what is at stake if he finds his mother’s attacker. He journeys to the round house alone and while there, experiences moments where he feels in tune with nature and the round house itself. His senses are overwhelmed by his feelings; he feels connected to the crime, as if he were there when it happened. These feelings of connectedness symbolize Joe’s desire to help his mother, as well as his connection to his past. If there is a sense of good and evil, good is working to aid Joe in finding his mother’s attacker. Joe’s finding of the gas can the attacker may have used and his ability to connect on another level with the crime, underscore his maturity, despite being thirteen. His ability to hone in on the facts also highlight that Joe is adept at the type of work his father does, combing over general ideas and finding motives and/or evidence.
The chapters also illustrate the need for and importance of growth. Joe wants to grow and mature; finding his mother’s attacker is one way for him to do so. To his father being patient and not jumping into things are symbols of growth. Both Bazil and Joe see growth as a necessary component for Geraldine to heal. They replant her garden, symbolizing Geraldine’s inability to grow on her own. The flowers hint at future growth, underscoring the hope Bazil and Joe have that things will one day be right again.
These chapters again show how important friends and family are in Joe’s life. His friends help him without hesitation, agreeing to help Joe harm the rapist—a bit of foreshadowing given the book’s ending. Joe’s friends also agree to help investigate Father Travis, despite the possible negative outcomes of confronting someone seen as dangerous. The boys receive a lesson in fact finding, however, when Father Travis turns the tables and questions them. The boys learn that looks can be deceiving and that one should never judge others on hearsay. This lesson points back to the importance of law and tribal law in establishing a framework for how to conduct cases and justice. Vigilante justice can hurt innocent people.
Another instance of not judging a book by its cover comes when Joe meets Linda Wishkob. Linda is described as strange and ugly, and somewhat of a recluse. Where others see a strange person, however, Bazil and Joe see a key to investigating another lead: the Larks. When Linda eventually tells her story, Joe and Bazil learn that she is the victim of her biological family. The Larks abandoned her because of her deformity. Though she dislikes them, she agreed to give her twin-brother, Linden, a kidney, showing how kind Linda truly is. Linda’s confession also underscores the theory that Linden is indeed capable of rape and murder. If Joe or Bazil had treated Linda as others do, they might have never found the information that puts them on a better trail to Geraldine’s attacker. Linda is also instrumental to Joe later in the narrative. Above all, these chapters show how things are not always as they seem on the surface. Like Bazil suggests early on, it is best to get to the facts—the nitty gritty—to understand people and circumstances.
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