The Light in the Forest | Themes

The Light in the Forest Themes

Family and Personal Relationships

Personal relationships are the connective tissue of this novel. They inspire the characters to exhibit many different kinds of behavior - from love gestures to oaths of allegiance to violence. For True Son, no bond is greater than the bond he has with those he believes to be his true people: his father Cuyloga and the rest of his village. It is this strength of relationship that makes him resist being taken by the white soldiers at the beginning of the novel, and it is the reason he cannot fully take on the ways of the whites once he has come to live with them. He does not trust his white father because of the stories his Indian father has told him about the treachery of whites: they push into the Indian territory, steal the land and cut down the trees, and murder Indians without provocation - even children and...
(read more)