Home

The characters’ longing for home coupled with their understanding that they must leave their homes and familiarities behind in order to seek safety is a major theme within the novel. Winona leaves the Lakota tribe behind to live with John Cole and Thomas McNulty, and Winona cannot stop herself from lamenting the loss of home. She knows that she is lucky to have John and Thomas and somebody to look after her in any case, but she still feels poorly about having suffered the loss of her family. In this way, she still sees herself as a little girl because she “had no choice in the matter. Once your mother is taken from you, you can’t ever catch up with her again. You can’t cry out ‘Wait for me’ when the winds turn cold…and she has walked far ahead” (17).

Home functions as both...