42 pages • 1 hour read
Forrest CarterThe Education of Little Tree
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 18-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary: “Down From the Mountain”
Lawyers come to the house and present Granma and Granpa with paperwork, saying that someone filed a complaint about Little Tree’s lack of education and well-being. As a result, Little Tree must go to an orphanage and receive a “proper” education. Little Tree tries to develop solutions for the situation so that he can stay with his grandparents, but Granma and Granpa act defeated. Granpa and Little Tree go into the settlement to seek the help of Mr. Wine, but they learn that Mr. Wine has passed away. Next, they visit a lawyer, who refuses to take up the case because the law doesn’t understand (and doesn’t want to understand) the ways of the mountain people and the Native Americans. Resigned, the three make the most of the time they have left together before turning Little Tree over to the law. He gets on the bus and promises that he’ll be back soon once the law sees he’s properly educated already.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Dog Star”
Little Tree goes to the orphanage where the Reverend tells him that he’ll never be welcome in church and that he is not a legitimate child because the law doesn’t recognize his parents’ Cherokee marriage. He makes a friendship of sorts with one of the other boys in the orphanage, Wilburn, but he is never part of the lineup for adoption, and the adults isolate him from all events. When he gets in trouble and the Reverend punishes him, he dissociates into his spirit mind so that he doesn’t feel the physical pain.
Every evening, Little Tree stands by a window and watches the Dog Star rise; at first, he uses his thoughts to send impressions of his life to Granma, Granpa, and Willow John and receives impressions of their lives in return. Soon, though, he shifts and just repeats that he wants to go home. Granpa comes to visit and check on Little Tree but must leave again. When he does, Little Tree follows him under the guise of helping him get to the bus station. Then they both get on the bus, and Little Tree goes home with Granpa.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Home Again”
Little Tree and Granpa make it home, and nature welcomes Little Tree back. Granma and Granpa catch Little Tree up on what happened while he was away. Little Tree learns that Willow John went to the orphanage to check on Little Tree and told the Reverend that Little Tree needed to come back to the mountain. By the time Little Tree saw Granpa at the orphanage, the Reverend was already signing papers to release Little Tree back into the custody of his grandparents, but Granpa did not tell his grandson about this at the time, because he wanted to let Little Tree choose for himself whether to stay at the orphanage or return to the mountain. The choice made, they all settle back into their routines again.
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Passing Song”
Two Sundays after Little Tree returns from the orphanage, Willow John is not by the tree at church like he usually is. The three do not go to church, but instead go home worried about Willow John. Granpa and Little Tree make the trek to Willow John’s lodge and find him sick in bed. They care for him through the night, but in the morning, he sings his passing song and passes away. They take a shirt down the mountain to Granma, so Granma will know what happened without their having to tell her in words.
Over the next two years, Little Tree tries to ease life for Granpa by slowly taking on more and more of the work. However, age catches up with Granpa, and he also says his farewells and passes away. They bury Granpa in his secret place with the help of Mr. Jenkin’s son and Pine Billy.
Little Tree tries to take up the whiskey trade on his own, but he knows that his whiskey isn’t as good as it was when he and Granpa made it together. One day when he comes down from the still, he finds that Granma has passed away on the porch. She has left him a note, telling him that all is well. He and Pine Billy bury Granma, and Little Tree heads off west with the two remaining dogs. One dog dies on the road to the Nations, and the other dog lives a little while longer before also passing away. Now alone in the world, Little Tree sets off to find a mountain of his own.
Chapters 18-21 Analysis
The story of Little Tree’s Coming of Age comes to an end as he is put through his final tests to determine whether or not he is ready to leave the mountain. His first tests come in the form of lawyers who take him away from his grandparents and his life on the mountain, forcing him into a traumatic, marginalized existence at the orphanage out of a misguided sense that he is receiving inadequate care in his family’s home. Leaving aside the larger societal implications of this incident and focusing solely upon the novel’s status as a bildungsroman, the hardships of this event compel Little Tree to apply his many life lessons in a completely unfamiliar situation. Because he is surrounded by hostility and indifference on all sides for the first time in his life, he must rely upon his own inner strength and “spirit mind” to see him through these trials.
In the orphanage, he finds himself forced into the role of outcast—a position not just condoned by the adults, but actually perpetuated by them as well. He is isolated because he is “different” and because the Reverence considers him illegitimate (since the law does not recognize Cherokee marriages). This social injustice even extends to the point that the Reverend refuses to allow Little Tree the opportunity to be offered for adoption. Faced with the hostility of a society that refuses to respect him or accept him for who he is, Little Tree must find his own sources of strength and companionship, which he does by developing a friendship with Wilburn, one of the other boys. By practicing the skill of kinning, he truly listens to Wilburn: both to what the boy says and to what he doesn’t say. With the spiritual sensitivity that he learned on the mountain, Little Tree hears the true depth of the tears and heartbreak that Wilburn experiences each night when he is not adopted by a family. Little Tree’s intense empathy earns the trust of his new friend and demonstrates his ability to make his way in the world even when circumstances are pitted against him.
The next test that Little Tree undergoes in this hostile setting is the need to reestablish a spiritual connection with his family, and so Little Tree uses his “spirit mind” to connect with the Dog Star and send his thoughts out into the world with the hope that his grandparents will “kin” his need and know what he is going through, even though they cannot communicate directly. It is not a literal communication; rather, it is a deeper understanding that allows Little Tree to feel the continued presence of his family and loved ones back on the mountain because of how deeply he understands and kins them. He also passes this test, because he knows that his family will come for him; after sending these thoughts out to his family, he eagerly watches the gates and sees someone whom he believes to be Granpa. Later, he actually sees his grandfather at the orphanage to pick him up, and thus, his spiritual strength is rewarded with deliverance.
Though it is not formally a test, his kinship with Willow John shines through in this climactic section of the novel, for the older man demonstrates the depth of his connection to the boy by interceding on his behalf and demanding that the Reverend allow Little Tree to return home. Had Little Tree’s earlier efforts on the mountain to kin with Willow John been unsuccessful, it is unlikely that Willow John would have been willing to advocate for Little Tree and help him out of this untenable situation. However, despite the love and kindness at the heart of Willow John’s gesture, Carter portrays Willow John as an overbearing, intimidating man who indirectly threatens the Reverend into releasing Little Tree. Though no violent actions are taken, Willow John is made to represent the caricature of the “noble savage” who is well behaved until pushed to the limit, at which point he reverts to his perceived “savage” tendencies.
The final section of the novel gains a rather wistful, nostalgic tone, for although Little Tree has passed these tests and demonstrated his maturity, he is not yet ready to leave the mountain; philosophically, he is still clinging to his grandfather’s leg, just as he did in the first chapter of the book. It is only through the inevitability of his loved ones’ deaths that he is finally forced to acknowledge the necessity of leaving home and becoming his own person.
In a final emphasis of the reality that Little Tree’s old life is passing away, even his beloved family dogs die on the trail and leave him to face the world utterly alone, with only his memories and lessons to guide him on the path forward. Although Little Tree feels sorrow at his family’s passing, he knows that he will continue to feel their spirits throughout his life, just as he knows that the dogs he cared for in life will now go on to care for his grandparents in the afterlife. Thus, despite these sorrows, he is now free to go and make his own life and find his own mountain to call home. With Little Tree’s final decision, Carter emphasizes the symbolic status of the mountain itself, which now represents Little Tree’s home and his comfort zone. Rather than clinging to the mountain of his childhood, he must find a new mountain to shelter him and create new lessons and memories for his adult self.
