45 pages • 1 hour read
Morgan TaltyNight of the Living Rez
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.
“Burn"
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“Burn” Summary
The first-person narrator, Dee, who lives on the Penobscot Reservation, leaves the reservation to purchase marijuana from a man named Rab. Dee doesn’t have money, though, and isn’t able to convince Rab that he’s simply lost his wallet, so he heads home. On the way, he finds his friend Fellis stuck in the ice of a frozen swamp. Fellis missed the bus to the methadone clinic and so went to get alcohol, hoping to get drunk enough to blunt the symptoms of opioid withdrawal. He dozed off, and when he woke, his hair was frozen into the swamp. After some deliberation, Dee cuts off Fellis’s braid to free him. Fellis gives him money for Rab, and Dee goes back to buy marijuana. They decide that they’ll burn Fellis’s braid when they get back to his house because they “don’t want spirits after” them (5).
“Burn” Analysis
This brief opening story introduces two of the collection’s central characters, Dee and Fellis, and uses one of the collection’s primary and most complex symbols—drug use—to both characterize and provide conflict for these characters. Dee’s lie to Rab demonstrates both Dee’s resourcefulness and his desperation. The encounter with Fellis shows just how dire the eventual consequences of
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