57 pages • 1 hour read
Kent HarufPlainsong
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “McPherons”
Raymond and Harold McPheron survey the cattle in their corral, waiting for Guthrie to arrive and help them finish the work. They set up the vaccination equipment while discussing the weather. Guthrie arrives with his boys, who “said they wanted to come” (56). Guthrie moves two cows into the holding pens; Raymond positions one cow while Harold lubricates his arm and checks for a calf. Ike and Bobby stare at Harold’s arm, “red and slick, spotted with mucus and flecks of manure and little threads of blood” (57). Once the cow has received its vaccinations, it is released back into the pen. They move on to the next cow, which is old and no longer bearing calves. Raymond and Harold decide to send her to “the empty loading pen from which she would be trucked away” (58).
When there are only a few cows left, Guthrie asks the boys if they want to help. The boys learn how to move the cattle around the pen and into the alley. After one successful attempt with their father, they try to do it alone. Guthrie leaves the boys—armed with a whip and a cattle prod—and goes to help the McPherons dehorn a cow. As the boys successfully move the cows into place, Harold tells a story about visiting a vet called Doc Wycoff and finding him in a compromising situation with a woman.
At last, the only cow remaining is one with a reputation for kicking. As Bobby and Ike try to move her, she thunders past Ike and gallops into Bobby, who “bounced once like a piece of thrown stove wood” (62). Bobby struggles to breathe and begins to choke. Guthrie leaps into the pen to help his son, who sits up: “I’m proud of you” (63), Guthrie tells his boys, and they proceed to deal with the final cow together. The cow leaps, gets caught on top of the fence, and begins to kick and thrash. Finally, she falls over into the holding pen, injuring herself in the process. They decide to leave her be, and the McPherons promise to “keep an eye on her” (64).
After cleaning up, Ike and Bobby sit in the car while their father talks to Harold. Raymond approaches the boys and hands them money for their day’s work, though Guthrie tries to protest it as unnecessary. Only when they are finally driving home do the boys dare open up their tightly-balled fists to see what they have been given: each of them has a ten-dollar bill.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Victoria Roubideaux”
At a doctor’s office, Victoria fills out a form as best she can. Handing it in, she takes a seat and examines the other patients. When her turn comes, she is weighed and measured before undressing to await the doctor. He arrives and is surprised to learn that he has seen Victoria once before: “six or seven years ago” (68), she assures him. He smiles and begins to explain the pelvic exam to her.
Victoria leans back with her feet in the stirrups. He talks her carefully through the exam and, when he is finished, he confirms again that she is pregnant and can expect a baby in the spring. Next, he asks her whether she wants to keep the baby, and Victoria says that she does. They discuss health practices, such as smoking and drinking. When the doctor asks if Victoria has any questions, her eyes well up, and she asks if the baby is healthy. The doctor confirms the baby is healthy, and Victoria feels calm again.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Guthrie”
Guthrie sits at his desk during the last period of the day, listening to a student give a “scarcely coherent” (73) presentation about Hamilton. The next student stands up and delivers a nervous presentation about Cornwallis. A boy in black cowboy boots claims to have found nothing about Thomas Jefferson during his research. Next, Guthrie calls Victoria to deliver a presentation.
He notes that Victoria looks “better kept” (75) but has to ask her to speak up. A wave of silence falls across the class, emanating out from Russell. Victoria runs from the room, and Guthrie sends another student to find her. Guthrie asks Russell what was said, and then they step together into the hallway. Guthrie grabs Russell by the arm and insists that he reveal what was said. Russell curses and the two struggle, the boy hitting the teacher “at the side of the face” (77) before running to the parking lot and driving away.
Guthrie spits a bit of a tooth into his handkerchief. He reenters the class and tells the students to read until the bell. The student he sent to find Victoria returns, unable to locate her.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Ike and Bobby”
One day, Ike and Bobby take a boy named Donny Lee Burris to the abandoned building where they saw the naked teens. Hesitantly, they enter the old building. Once they find the room, they spot the trampled grass outside “where they themselves had stood in the night, watching” (81). Donny makes claims about sex, which Ike and Bobby do not believe, and then smells the blanket Sharlene had been lying on. Bobby and Ike tell him to stop, and they bicker until they hear a sound outside. The “old man from next door” (82) enters, armed with a shotgun, and the boys are frozen with fear. The old man chases them from the house with the gun raised. When they are far enough away, Donny reveals that he stole a candle from the house. Bobby and Ike feel possessive over the memory of the girl, and they leave Donny behind to go and look at the horses.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Victoria Roubideaux”
Victoria tries to contact Dwayne, the man who impregnated her. She reaches Dwayne’s mother, only to be told that he has moved out. Dwayne has a job, and his mother refuses to give out his contact information. Victoria feels “very alone now, cut off and frightened for the first time” (85). She doesn’t want to return to Maggie’s house (where Maggie’s father, Mr. Jackson, is all alone), so she walks to Shattuck’s, a nearby restaurant.
Victoria orders a Coke and drinks it in the restaurant, watching a mother eat with her two children. The woman jumps up suddenly when her daughter spills chocolate milk. Furious, she storms out of the restaurant and almost drives away without her daughters, leaving the messy table behind.
Later, Victoria returns home before Maggie. She enters quietly while the old man is asleep. As Victoria uses the bathroom, Mr. Jackson discovers her and forgets who she is, slapping her across the face. Victoria promises to leave and he exits, so she locks the door and stays inside for an hour. Maggie comes home to find her father sitting on the floor in the hallway, accusing Victoria of wanting “my key” (88). Maggie leads him to bed. Victoria wants to leave because she is scared of Mr. Jackson, but she has nowhere else to go.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
The characters begin to encounter an increasing amount of conflict. Guthrie comes to blows with Russell. Victoria receives angry pushback from Dwayne’s mother and then locks herself in Maggie’s bathroom to avoid Mr. Jackson. Ike and Bobby attempt to share their experience of watching teenagers have sex, but find themselves threatened by a neighbor with a gun. After a relatively tranquil beginning, the narratives introduce an element of danger as the characters’ stakes are established.
These incidents are preceded by the chapter in which Bobby and Ike help corral the cattle. For the first time, they are treated as adults. The McPheron brothers pay them for their work as though they were employees; they treat Bobby and Ike as equals and, in doing so, provide a possible template for the boys’ future. Through the course of the novel, Bobby and Ike are drawn closer and closer together. They experience everything as a pair. In the early chapters, when they arrive at school, they split apart and join separate friend groups. In the chapter above, they try to include another boy in their experiences, but it does not end well. By the close of the novel, they are exclusively spending time in each other’s company. As they drive home from the McPheron farm, and the boys ask Guthrie about the two older men, Bobby concludes “they didn’t want to leave each other” (66). It is a sentiment which he is sure to share, able to see the echoes of the McPheron brothers in his own relationship with Bobby. The conflict in these chapters—whether it is the kicking cow or the neighbor with the gun—helps to remind Bobby and Ike that they need to depend on each other for support.
Guthrie’s conflict with Russell has been brewing in the background. Russell functions as an antagonist as he rebels against Guthrie’s attempts to impose order and education. He openly questions what little authority Guthrie holds and, through his parents, poses a threat to Guthrie’s employment. This open display of rebellion angers Guthrie, who begins to realize that he possesses very few tools with which to hurt Russell. When he “grabbed the boy’s arm” (77), Russell immediately responds by pointing out that Guthrie is not allowed to do so. Guthrie resorts to physical violence out of frustration; he is frustrated with the way Beckman disrupts class, as well as with his own homelife. Much like Ella, Russell does not conform to social norms. Guthrie is as frustrated with his wife as he is with his pupil and discovers that he has very few ways in which to resolve this anger. The conflict, in this instance, is internalized frustration spilling over into physical violence.
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