Faces in The Moon - Major Themes

Major Themes

• Oral Storytelling

Oral storytelling is prevalent throughout Faces in the Moon. Oral storytelling is very important in Cherokee culture because it is a communal activity. Gracie and Rozella sit around the kitchen table and tell stories. Lizzie tells stories to Lucie. Although Gracie constantly reminds readers that Lucie does not have a story, Lucie is in fact telling her own story through the novel. Lucie often complains that she is tired of living in the past through stories. However, she acknowledges their importance in her life and says, "no matter how great my desire to run away from home, to live in a place and history free from secrets, I always take up my position at the table" (5). The novel itself also sounds like the spoken word. Readers get the sense that they are listening in on a conversation, maybe even participating at times, rather than having limited participation as outsiders. The book is dense with women’s voices. Perhaps this is Bell’s way of giving agency back to women after their voices had been left out due to colonization.

• Identity Crisis

The best example of identity crisis can be seen through Lucie, the character representing the youngest generation. A cause of her identity crisis is through naming. As a child, she lived with an aunt who “never bothered with divorce, she simply lived in one married name until the opportunity for another came along" (11). Not only was it her aunt that did this, but her mother switched names as well. Her mother and aunt constantly moving from man to man and name to name is consistent with how the Cherokee’s culture was changing as a result of their removal. This leads Lucie to confusion, and she asks to be baptized as Antoinette. Since she is so young, one may think making up a name is childish play, but baptism is not usually an act taken lightly. It is also important to notice that neither Lucie nor the reader knows her last name, adding to her confused identity.

• Confusion Regarding Cherokee Heritage

Bell makes her characters question their Cherokee heritage. Lucie can be seen as a victim of this confusion because she cannot relate to her non-native or her native side. Gracie and Auney send mixed signals by choosing “high heels over moccasins, blue eyes over black eyes” (58). They alter their looks to seem less Cherokee but claim to be Cherokee. The women are also mixed bloods (Scotch and Cherokee). Because of the mixed signals from her relatives, Lucie struggles with the notion of whether she is Cherokee or not because she knows she too is of mixed blood and she has conflicting identities. To complicate things even further, she hears Reverend Tom Cottonmouth say, “if youse got Cherokee blood a-running through your veins, no matter how distant, no matter how pre-e-e posterous, no matter how recent, the Cherokee loves y’all”(57). He makes a mockery of the Cherokee saying “For a ten dollar bill, no checks please, we’ll send ya a authentic certificate of Cherokee blood. And wait Indian brothers and sisters, ifn ya do that ‘fore midnight tonight, we’ll send ya a genuine rock from the Cherokee nation”(57). Reverend Cottonmouth’s claim is so ridiculous that it makes being Cherokee seem accessible for everyone. It’s like the ultimate slap on the face for true Cherokee who suffered through the Indian Removal. This leaves Lucie confused because there is nothing she can relate to.

• Traditional vs. New

Throughout the novel, Bell juxtaposes what it means to live closer to the traditional way of native life as compared to the new way. She uses Lizzie and Gracie as representations of the traditional and new way of life, respectively. Lizzie is a full-blooded Cherokee and is described as “a dark-eyed beauty with olive skin and black hair to her waist” (8). She farms the same land that she has always lived on and refuses to accept the stolen goods from Gracie’s current love interest. Lizzie shows power and strength as she deals with the terrible disease of tuberculosis. She also tells many stories to Lucie and encourages her to dream. Also, Lizzie and Uncle Jerry share the workload on the farm; this shows the importance of a balance of power between men and women and is another stark contrast to the patriarchal society of mainstream culture. Whereas Lizzie has retained her native qualities, Gracie has internalized mainstream white culture. Her hair is dyed an unnatural platinum blonde. She tried to dye Rozella’s hair, and nearly burned it all off. She even shaved Lucie’s eyebrows and lined her eyes with dark makeup. Instead of working for her food like Lizzie does, Gracie stores the stolen goods from J.D. and sometimes profits from them. Bell is not only critiquing the internalization of mainstream, white culture, but she is saying that this goes hand-in-hand with the unnatural. Lizzie is connected to nature whereas Gracie seems in a way, concerned only with the synthetic.

• Generational Gap

Gracie and Auney’s attempt to maintain Cherokee culture through storytelling roles has in a sense failed, or caused a gap, in generations because at this point, the Cherokee are so far removed from their original customs that the next generation (or Lucie) cannot identify with the stories. Lucie says on page 58 that she “knew no Indian princesses, no buckskin, no feathers, no tomahawks.” She goes on to say that she tried to see the women in her life as Indians but that she can’t. Her lack of understanding the stories further complicates her identity as she has no first hand experience with tradition but at the same time is too far gone to get it back. Bell introduces a sense of worry in the text by making the reader question “well what is going to happen to the next generation?”

• Stability

Bell relates stability to both physical and psychological firmness and strength. She constructs characters that differ in their reactions to their Cherokee heritage in order to show that the strongest, most stable characters are those who do not run away from who they are. As a child and as an adult, Lucie struggles with the concept of her mixed blood heritage. She is connected to images of movement as she tries to figure out who she is. There is the image of physical movement as Lucie rides in her mother’s car on the way to Lizzie’s house. Lucie’s physical movement is linked to psychological insecurity because she is unsure of what to expect. While at Lizzie’s, Lucie comes down with an illness and has nights of restless sleep. In her dreams, she is running from wild dogs. She sees a native woman in the dream but cannot reach her. In the previous pages, Lucie and Lizzie were discussing why Lucie could not smile and wave to white men in the general store. When Lucie asked why she had to walk with her head down, Lizzie replied, “You’re just different” (107). Lucie’s dream and the physical movement of running and reaching within it can be connected to a lack of psychological strength concerning who she is. Lucie tries to run and reach out to her native side, but her actions fall short because she does not understand what it means to be mixed blood, Cherokee, and/or “different.” The movement continues into Lucie’s adulthood; she moves to California to escape the psychological hardships of her life in Oklahoma. At the end of the novel, Lucie is at her mother’s funeral and sees three does. Her moment of physical and psychological stability emerges when “a stillness surrounded her, no leaf fluttered, and no bird sang, the earth paused waiting as I waited, giving up this moment to her peace” (186).

• Critique of Historical Documents

The United States Government told Cherokee Indians that they would get a certain amount of land in Indian Territory. However, many Cherokee did not understand the complicated diction that the officials used. Bell spends five and a half pages critiquing the historical documents related to these incidents. Colonel Needles asks Robert Evers, Helen’s father, a list of questions regarding his family. Evers answers them to the best of his ability even when some are obviously meant to belittle the Cherokee. For example, the Colonel treats him like a suspect when he asks if he has ever discussed seceding from the Union. The Colonel’s last question is intricately worded and ends with the agreement that Evers’ land can be revoked at any time. Evers, not understand, replies with “Sir?”. This scene represents how the government manipulated the Cherokee through complicated language and ultimately made it possible to legally strip them of their promised land. Bell also critiques Helen Evers’ death certificate. Both her date and place of birth is unknown. Her father’s name is listed as “none.” Bell expresses, through Lucie’s viewpoint, the sickening feeling she gets when she reads this. Critiqing these documents also allows Bell to comment on how the Cherokee people are/were viewed as disposable and in some cases, nonexistent.