26 pages • 52 minutes read
Terese Marie MailhotHeart Berries
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018A 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 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Thunder Being Honey Bear”
Mailhot reflects on thunder, which comes to destroy and heal. While in a coffee shop, she doubles over in pain after having the sudden memory of an adult man in the shower. She calls Casey though she is afraid he’ll mock her or call her dramatic.
She realizes she has been repressing a memory of her father touching her in the shower as a five or six-year-old girl. She sees a therapist, who encourages her to buy a teddy bear and hold it the way she would hold and soothe her younger self.
The bear reminds her of honey. She finally comes to terms with the memory and speaks it aloud. She tells Casey, simply, “He hurt me” (111).
Chapter 10 Summary: “Indian Condition”
Mailhot graduates from the Institute of American Indian Arts with an MFA and takes an editorial position. She becomes a fellow. She realizes that the Indian condition might be pain, but that pain is an education. She recalls her graduation day, and the education she received from the reservation, motherhood, love, and her drunken father. She believes that Casey “wants her sorrow more now that it is more sophisticated, it’s less contrite” (115)—there is power in educating yourself and processing pain. She is grateful for her education in pain, and the fact that her boys inherited it. It is what makes them Indian.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Better Parts”
Mailhot writes a final letter to her mother. She calls her Wahzinak, mom, and mother. She compares her mother’s story to the fall of man, but her mother is not Eve. Her mother is stealthier than Eve, trespassing in the garden and unseen by God. Mailhot acknowledges that language fails the pain and the beauty of her mother’s legacy. She says goodbye to her mother with a final message: “I’m leaving your body in the earth…” (121).
Chapters 9-11 Analysis
In the final chapters of the memoir, Mailhot’s language is at its least linear and least “economic.” This is her natural mode of expression, which serves as proof of her self-acceptance by the end of the book.
The symbol of thunder appears in the final chapters, as Mailhot comes to terms with the memory of her father in the shower and the trauma and pain that caused her. Thunder is described as being a powerful force that arises out of chaos and destruction, and Mailhot considers the ways that thunder has facilitated growth through her struggles. By finding value in her pain, Mailhot can come to terms with her past suffering and move forward.
While Mailhot previously addressed her writing to Casey, she switches her address to her mother in the final essay. This signifies a shift in her perception, and a desire to look to a new source of power. Where before Mailhot was pleading with Casey, now she is coming terms with her history and her pain. She is seeking validation internally rather than externally. By holding her mother accountable for the pain she passed down to her children and by loving her deeply, Mailhot makes space for herself in the final pages of her book.
