Part 4, Chapter 42 Summary

Old Bird falls and the narrator falls with him. The narrator lies still and listens to the silence.

Part 4, Chapter 42 Analysis

The narrator lies injured, thinking about his father and Mose, unable to care that Old Bird might be fatally wounded or that the cow might be dead. The narrator has realized that the only people he has ever cared for are dead, further exploring the depth of his own emotions and helping him to heal, touching on the theme of lack of identity one last time, as it is the confusion of the narrator's emotions that have caused him this identity crisis in the first place.