56 pages • 1 hour read
Annette Saunooke ClapsaddleEven As We Breathe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Life and Death as an Eternal Cycle
From the Prologue, the cycle of life and death emerges as a dominant theme. The impetus for the story, Cowney says, is his reaction to the death of a woman from his past: Essie. He refers to several aspects of his story that connect to this theme: the deceased woman; the random piece of bone he once found by chance; a missing young girl; and, above all, the trees, mountains, and earth to which the speaker claims he belongs. In Chapter 24, the author draws all these threads together to express summarily the narrative’s main idea: Cowney and Essie fulfill their shared destiny by returning their bodies, side-by-side, to the earth. Life and death, Cowney says, are a sacred cycle this couple will fulfill.
There is an unbreakable union of death and life throughout the novel. Cowney’s narrative contains constant references to deceased souls whose lives influence the situations of living characters. Cowney frequently asks his grandmother to tell him his mother’s and father’s stories again—particularly the mysterious tale of his father’s death. Bud rages against the yoke of caring for a child—assumed to be his brother’s and named for his brother—after the deaths of Cowney Sr. and August. When Lishie dies, both things she said and things she did not say continue to drive Cowney’s actions and his investigations. In this way, Clapsaddle implies that the actions and deaths of those who came before influence the lives of those who come after, binding the living to the dead in a perpetual cycle.
Cowney ultimately decides that the cycle of life and death nurtures and propagates the earth itself. He recognizes that his people, the Cherokees, have grasped this reality for centuries. The displacement and herding of Indigenous Americans, along with their desire to escape the false boundaries placed upon them, threaten to disrupt this eternal cycle. The author portrays Cowney’s spiritual recentering through his interaction with the waterfall sanctuary. In the serene solace of the deep woods, Cowney recovers his proper place in the cycle. He brings Essie, who likewise rediscovers where she belongs. Once reconnected, the two characters separate. They travel, build families, and live disparate, distant lives—yet they never forget to where they ultimately must return. For Clapsaddle, Cowney and Essie embody the Cherokee people—disenfranchised and driven from the place to which they belong. Wherever they go, however, the earth summons them to return home and fulfill their part in the eternal cycle of life and death.
Hypocritical Bias Against Indigenous Americans
The narrative begins in 1942, 110 years after the beginning of the Trail of Tears which followed the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Clapsaddle assumes that readers know about the US government’s military acquisition of vast swaths of Indigenous American land, about the continually broken federal treaties, and about the historical persecution of Indigenous peoples. What the author emphasizes here is that, more than a century after these acts commenced, the unmerited persecution of Indigenous Americans still continues. Clapsaddle also reveals the hypocrisy of such behavior by white Americans.
Cowney observes that, on account of his race, his role in life is both clear and quite limited. Throughout the summer, he only ventures out into Asheville once, when Lee takes him to eat at a public restaurant—where the server ignores him—and then to a movie—where they must sit in the balcony. While the armed soldiers refer to the enemy diplomats as “guests” and treat them as such, they bully and mock Cowney and Essie because they are Cherokee. The one soldier they mistakenly assume to be their friend betrays them. When Griggs, the commanding officer, summons Cowney to question him about a missing child, he begins the encounter by insulting Cowney’s race and, during the process, sneers that Indigenous Americans have committed beastly atrocities.
Clapsaddle displays the hypocrisy of white bias against Indigenous Americans through several ironic passages. Jon, a former soldier who served with Bud and Cowney Sr., says that white soldiers removed ammunition from the weapons of their Indigenous compatriots, fearing an overnight uprising. This resulted in Bud going outside during an enemy attack with an empty weapon. Thus, it was the Cherokees who had something to fear and not the white soldiers. Griggs’s comment about Indigenous peoples committing atrocities pales in comparison to the forced removal of 100,000 Indigenous Americans forced to march the Trail of Tears, approximately 3000 of whom died on the journey.
Beyond the broad strokes of hypocritical prejudice recorded in history to which she refers, the author also unveils the existence of bias in more subtle ways, as when a white tourist refuses to purchase handmade Cherokee baskets, saying they are too perfectly constructed to be authentic. Throughout the narrative, Clapsaddle points out that bias always contains elements of irony and hypocrisy.
Christian Faith and the Eternal Earth
The author reveals that the one aspect of white civilization these Cherokee characters embrace fully is Christian faith. While Christianity is not part of the Cherokee heritage, these Indigenous Americans have accepted it and adapted it. Present and essential throughout the narrative is Preacherman Davis. In addition to leading worship, this minister participates benevolently in the day-to-day activities of reservation life: showing up at the homes of widows to help shut out the smoke from forest fires or arranging transportation for those without vehicles or means. Lishie constantly speaks of her Christian faith and sings hymns. They have translated many Christian hymns into Cherokee and sing them in both languages. Along with this, they adhere to Christian moral values as well: Lishie’s lessons for Cowney and the community’s criticism of Bud’s behavior often emerge from a Christian worldview.
While the author does not criticize or denigrate Christianity, she also offers a different spiritual viewpoint that harkens back to the pantheistic faith of Indigenous Americans from before their inculcation into the church. Clapsaddle describes Cowney as leaving the church one day and striking out through the woods on his way home. Distracted by Edgar, the mischievous roving monkey, Cowney ventures deep into the forest, where he feels peace and experiences renewal in a pool beside a waterfall and cave. The author describes a ritual cleansing resembling a Christian baptism, followed by the gust of unexpected wind meant to imply a powerful spirit. Each time Cowney returns to the pool, he gains strength and inspiration. The author portrays an injured bear walking down into the water and rising up with no apparent injury. Thus, Clapsaddle implies this natural setting is also a place of healing.
Cowney extrapolates from his spiritual experiences at the pool that nature itself is a healing sanctuary. He decides that human beings belong to the earth that nurtures them. Further, he intuits that nature intends for humans to enrich the earth through their lives and then return to the earth once dead. Much as farmers plow under their crops in order to fertilize and pollinate the ground for the next season, Cowney posits that our lives—living robustly, sharing our stories with others, and disappearing back into the dirt—prepare the earth for the coming generations. He states that the human race is akin to the cicada, disappearing under the earth and waiting for a coming day of glory, “so that they can be reborn into greater things” (230).
