65 pages • 2 hours read
Lisa WingateShelterwood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Children’s Resilience Amidst Adversity
The youthful characters in Shelterwood are resilient and creative problem-solvers who find ways to survive even in the face of difficult circumstances. The novel celebrates the tenacity and strength of children by exploring their responses to adversity, and this theme is apparent in both timelines, for Olive’s group of children and her future grandchildren, Sydney and Braden, must work together to overcome the exploitative actions of the adults in their lives. Thus, while the novel celebrates the resilience of these young characters, the author also mourns the fact that children are sometimes forced to withstand danger and adversity on their own.
In the 1990 timeline, 12-year-old Sydney is faced with many challenging circumstances, given that her grandmother (an elderly Olive) and her mother, Jade, disappear unexpectedly one night, while Braden, her teenage brother, leaves shortly afterward. Sydney is thrust into an indifferent form of foster care at Mrs. Wambles’s house, an unpleasant place that carries an air of disorder and neglect. Mrs. Wambles is dismissive of Sydney and her brother and is unconcerned about their safety. Toward the end of the novel, Sydney’s situation worsens when Alton Parker seizes her from Mrs. Wambles’s home and attempts to lock her in a room until she reveals details about her brother’s whereabouts. In response to this adversity, Sydney uses her reputation as a teller of tall tales to protect her brother, strategically spreading lies to obscure the details of his whereabouts. Sydney is observant enough to realize that Valerie feels sympathetic and wants to help her, and the girl proves to be instrumental in helping Valerie solve the mystery of Alton Parker’s wrongdoings.
The author celebrates children’s resilience while mourning the fact that such resilience is necessary, and this dynamic is paralleled in the 1909 timeline as several young characters are abused, displaced, and manipulated by greedy or cruel adults. The most notable examples are Olive and Nessa, who are abused by Tesco and must flee his home to avoid further harm. Olive’s deep sense of responsibility for others compels her to add Tula, Pinti, and Koi to the group, and as the novel progresses, she carries a great deal of responsibility for one so young. Olive, like Sydney, is observant and intelligent; she talks her way into Mrs. Grube’s good graces and thus delivers all the children safely to Talihina, where they establish their Shelterwood Camp in the woods.
Olive’s actions prove that she understands the value of hope and optimism and works to foster resilience in herself and others; this philosophy is reflected in the name she chooses for their camp. As an elderly woman in 1990, Nessa references this name when she recounts the tale of Shelterwood Camp in Chapter 31, and she makes it a point to emphasize that despite Olive’s efforts, the children’s situation was dire, stating:
“[D]o not let the fairy tale name mislead you. Children abandoned by the world live a hard life. […] Yet, being children, they even made a game of their labor, […] trekking off to see who could return with the best goods” (316).
Nessa’s account highlights the creativity, playfulness, and underestimated intelligence that she and her compatriots demonstrated in their difficult younger years. Thus, the author simultaneously celebrates the children’s resilience and condemns the acts of cruelty and negligence that necessitated their ingenuity.
Exploitation as a Tool of the Powerful
In Shelterwood, Wingate portrays often-overlooked historical settings and events, using these backdrops to depict the actions of brave individuals who resist pervasive abuses of power and attempt to expose and prevent further exploitation. To this end, both timelines follow female protagonists who encounter dangerous dishonesty and are deeply impacted by the severe imbalances of power that plague their homes. Collectively, these interwoven storylines imply that those who wield the most political power often exploit and abuse vulnerable groups and misuse their authority with impunity.
As a work of historical fiction, Shelterwood depicts fictionalized events that are nonetheless based on documented historical events and trends. The author uses this genre to critique the exploitative actions of unscrupulous and powerful people, and the narrative therefore works to highlight abuses of power in US history that still remain largely unaddressed. The author’s own philosophical views on this point emerge in the interactions of her characters, for in Chapter 31, Nessa wisely tells Valerie that “one must never believe what can be read in the history books about powerful men” because such people “have the privilege of writing their own stories as they like” (313). This statement summarizes the author’s desire to expose the exploitation that has occurred in the country’s past, particularly with the widespread abuse of marginalized groups such as the Choctaw people and other Indigenous cultures.
The plot of the 1909 timeline is laser-focused on portraying concrete examples of such exploitation. As the narrative reveals, men like Lockridge use their positions of power as wealthy, white men to “gai[n] guardianship over dozens of Choctaw children, and thereby control over a king’s ransom in land, oil and timber” (314). As this quote indicates, the author is deeply committed to exposing the connection between power and exploitation, for the plot does not depict impoverished or disenfranchised people taking advantage of one another. Instead, Shelterwood’s plot depicts men with power and money who use those resources to exploit those who are ill-suited to defend themselves because of their age or legal status.
The modern timeline also features a powerful man, Alton Parker, who exploits both people and land to increase his wealth and influence. Notably, Alton Parker’s power is both social and financial, as is evidenced when Valerie is repeatedly told to drop her investigation because Alton is well-connected and well-loved in the region. The Oklahoma locals feel a strong sense of loyalty to him and are unwilling to risk exposing his illegal activities to an “outsider,” but Valerie persists despite these warnings. In the end, locals like the chief ranger and Valerie’s other coworkers are grateful for her persistence, for she uses her outsider status to expose Alton’s abuses of power when no one else is willing to do so. Valerie’s victory and the recognition that she receives both underscore the author’s broader message: The exploitation of vulnerable people must be openly addressed before it can be stopped.
Nature as a Source of Healing and Refuge
Throughout both timelines, nature becomes a powerful force in the narrative, and the region surrounding Camp Shelterwood takes on a life of its own and becomes a character in its own right. The novel’s two protagonists share a love for natural spaces, and they both display a trust in the healing power of the outdoors. This common interest creates a strong connection between Olive and Valerie despite the vast gulf of time separating their experiences.
Olive’s narrative follows her journey from the unsafe home of Tesco Peele toward the perceived safety and paradise of the Winding Stair Mountains. She believes that she and the other children will be safe and independent once they arrive at her former family home, which is described as a place with “spreading oaks as old as the hills, and cliffs with moss and maidenhair ferns […] and a stream where you could catch all the fish you wanted” (57). This is an idyllic depiction of a natural space, and Olive holds this image close to her heart throughout her many challenges. This inner vision stands as her motivation and the source of her optimism. While Olive and her companions never reach this fabled place in the mountains, they do establish a camp in the woods outside of Talihina, and when Olive names this place “Shelterwood Camp,” her decision reflects her strong belief in nature as a place of refuge.
This belief is also a foundational aspect of Valerie’s timeline. As a ranger for the National Park Service, Valerie has dedicated her career to protecting and appreciating the natural landscape and enabling others to do the same. Valerie’s relationship with nature is something precious that she shares with her son Charlie, and when they are hiking together, Valerie inwardly “lose[s] [her]self in the healing power of feeling the world breathe, water over stones, wind against trees, last year’s dry leaves tumbling along expanses of rock” (188). Feeling a deep connection to her surroundings, Valerie, like Olive, seeks natural places whenever she needs to find peace or safety. This common practice connects the two protagonists across time and facilitates the novel’s broader message that the natural world should be protected and appreciated.
Wingate further depicts the power of nature to heal and soothe by showing what happens when nature is destroyed. Both Valerie and Olive experience the violation of their most cherished natural spaces, and their dismayed reactions indicate just how deeply connected they are to the natural world. When Valerie and Curtis find the dead body in the creek, Valerie wonders to herself, “Why do people have to come to such beautiful places to die?” (146). This thought makes it clear that she finds it difficult to process the juxtaposition of unnatural death with the calming natural spaces that she loves. Later, Valerie is physically sickened when she sees the wanton destruction caused by the illegal logging operation. Likewise, Olive feels sick when she returns to Shelterwood Camp to find horse prints and footprints where the peaceful forest camp once was. The author uses these parallel incidents to reinforce the importance of nature as a place of healing and to underscore the strong connections between humans and the natural world.
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