Coming Of Age Analysis

During a coming of age story, the events that take place often shape the person for the future. This is the same for Joe, who becomes so determined to find his mother’s attacker that the reader can connect it to the fact it is later reviled Joe becomes a lawyer like his father. It is obvious that all the events that take place of that summer mold Joe into wanting to help the weak and defenseless. Joe, an already bright child, pieces together the puzzle better than any police force had so far. Joe is so determined that he pulls in his friends into his plans and they scout the round house where the attack took place. Joe finds and learns many things as he pieces through the puzzle of the attack. He finds the gas can that was used to almost set …show more content…
So Joe decided to balance the evil Lark has placed on Joe’s family by killing him. These actions cause more than one life to be lost, but finally help Joe make his complete arc through his coming of age story. As the reader comes to the end of the story, they are confronted with the fact a 13 year old boy is planning on killing his mother’s attacker and rapist, Lark. Joe even goes to the extent of stealing a gun from Cappy’s father and practicing how to shoot from Cappy. As readers not from the culture of Native Americans this idea of killing someone, even someone who is a monster, without the legal justice system in place might be an odd idea. However, as the book explains through the legends Mooshum’s talks about in his sleep that Lark has now become a wiindgo and wiindgo are supposed to be killed to keep them from spreading evil. Moohsum explains this in his dream that Joe had listened too. “A wiindgo could cast its spirit inside of a person. That person would become an animal, and see fellow humans as prey meat” (180). So Joe sees Lark as a wiindgo and Mooshum’s dream also explains how to kill a wiindgo. “The thing to do was you had to kill that person right away. But not before you had agreement in the matter. You couldn’t do it alone. There was a certain way the killing of a wiindgo must be done” (180) and so the boys take on the challenge, but not …show more content…
The ghost that had appeared to him and Randall during the course of the book was still haunting Joe in his dreams, and both Cappy and Joe were really effected by taking Lark’s life. Both boys would walk up screaming and startled. Joe was awakened by Cappy’s moans after the boys had fell asleep out on the field. “Someone was moaning. It was Cappy. He was weeping, heartbroken, then frightened, shouting Please, No, in his sleep” (303). Joe was later told by him mom, “You called out in your sleep last night. You yelled… I got up and went to your door. You were talking to Cappy… you called out Cappy’s name twice” (304). But that wasn’t the last time Joe had dreams about what had happened. He explains that he would have dreams about the morning they killed Lark, or the ghost that he had seen in his backyard, a police officer. This police officer would mark the end of Joe’s coming of age story, as he leaned over Joe who held Cappy’s lifeless boy in his arms after the boys crashed the car while drinking and popping pills. Joe parents took him home in silence, “I thought in the miles in the car had bent them, dulled their eyes, even grayed their and whitened their hair and cause their hands and voiced to trembled. At the same time, I found as I rose from the chair, I’d gotten old along with them…We passed over in a sweep of sorrow that would persist into our small