The Ancient Child | Themes & Symbolism

The Ancient Child Significant Topics

Civilization versus Primitive

Grey lives in primitive surroundings while in Oklahoma. She has left her family on the Navajo Reservation in order to be with her great grandmother, a woman of great spiritual power as understood by primitive people. She learns from her great grandmother both in life and after death, becoming a strong and beautiful woman as a result. She returns to a less primitive setting on the Navajo Reservation where she marries Set and carries their child. The life she leads is very satisfying.

Set grows up in civilization and works to be a successful artist. By the time he is forty-four years old, he has lost his soul because he must paint what others want, not what he needs to express. If not for Grey's intervention and her great grandmother's request to give him the medicine bundle, Set would have continued on with a meaningless but successful life as an...
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