Sees Behind Trees

Chapters 5 and 6 emphasize the difference between age and maturity, adding a layer of complexity to Maturity Achieved Through Responsibility and Empathy and Mentorship and Intergenerational Learning. As Sees Behind Trees and Gray Fire journey in the snow, they teach and learn from each other, highlighting how knowledge is not only passed down from one generation to the next. Sees Behind Trees helps Gray Fire access his memories of the past and learn to trust someone else, while Gray Fire teaches Sees Behind Trees the value of trusting his body, exploring his surroundings, and avoiding obsession and hubris. The lesson of this section is that Sees Behind Trees still has much to learn about the world around him and his place within it. Gray Fire is paradoxically guiding Sees Behind Trees by allowing Sees Behind Trees to guide him, thus instilling in him a balance between confidence and humility. Neither knows the way forward, but they are working together to reach their goal, and the novel suggests that this humble and collaborative approach itself signifies maturity.

At the same time, Sees Behind Trees notes that Gray Fire is emotionally younger than he appears, commenting on how “his mind seem[s] younger—more curious and less sure” (51). Gray Fire later explains how the accident in the beautiful place “set [him and his sister] apart from the usual flow of life, froze [them] together as [they] were, as [they] had always been” (70). Though they cemented themselves as critical members of the community, they stopped growing in some respects. For instance, Gray Fire’s inability to hold Checha emphasizes not merely his avoidance of certain markers of adult status (e.g., marriage and children) but also a broader detachment from others. Gray Fire does not take responsibility for other people, and he struggles to empathize with them, both of which are qualities the novel highlights as critical elements of adulthood.

Gray Fire’s primary lesson for Sees Behind Trees concerns navigating with the body instead of the mind. For Sees Behind Trees, whose bodily experience is shaped by his disability and who is characterized in part by his ability to reason, this is a difficult concept to grasp, though one the novel suggests is important to becoming a well-rounded person. When Sees Behind Trees feigns understanding, Gray Fire corrects him, explaining how acknowledging one’s confusion is the only way to move forward—another check on Sees Behind Trees’s hubris. Once again, however, the lesson goes both ways, complicating the archetypal mentor-student dynamic. When Sees Behind Trees gets frustrated with the lesson, he lashes out at Gray Fire, saying, “[Y]ou can’t even find your way back to your water place” (56). This moment is a critical assertion of equality between the two characters. While Gray Fire has a lot to teach Sees Behind Trees, the fundamental reason for their journey is Gray Fire’s failure to relocate the beautiful place. The chapter ends with Gray Fire admitting that Sees Behind Trees “already see[s] better” (56), referring to the insights Sees Behind Trees has to offer.

Chapter 6 introduces three new characters from outside Sees Behind Trees’s community: Karna, Pitew, and Checha. When Gray Fire and Sees Behind Trees approach their camp, Gray Fire provides some exposition on the world of Sees Behind Trees. For example, Gray Fire explains how “ghosts” are “people like us, only changed in their form” (64), indicating a belief in the afterlife that is restricted to their own community. Meanwhile, “strangers,” or people from outside their community, are “difficult” because they are “secretive and unpredictable” (65). This discussion is undermined by Karna and Pitew’s hospitality, but they, too, warn of people to the south who are violent and dangerous. The threat of violence from outside the community foreshadows danger in the final chapters while also teaching Sees Behind Trees the value of both caution and kindness.