Weasel

Nathan and his family exist during a period when the US government openly displaces, oppresses, and kills Indigenous people. Their reaction to the violence is fraught, as it causes anxiety or stress. They worry about the treatment of the Shawnees, but, at the same time, they realize that they benefit from the deadly oppression and violence enacted toward Indigenous residents. Pa sums up his bluntly pragmatic approach, stating, “We didn’t think much about the Shawnees and how they got pushed out to make room for us. It was just the way of things” (79). Pa follows the norms because their family gains land from them, demonstrating how white settlers often accepted the deadly status quo and embodied a fraught moral compass as a result.

Many people initially celebrated Weasel for perpetuating the government’s lethal policies. Pa says, “Weasel was a big hero then to a lot of folks. But that didn’t last” (84). Once Weasel started assaulting the “folks,” they went from lionizing him to fearing him, as they didn’t want to be subject to his deadly violence. The Fowlers never praised Weasel in the first place, and they aligned themselves with Ezra and Gives-light-as-she-walks by giving them a ride in their wagon. They understood that they couldn’t stop the violent policies, which were systemized by the US government, but they were aware that they didn’t have to perpetuate them in their actions. Pa exposes the bigoted dynamic when he tells Nathan, “[A]s long as folks thought of the Shawnees as savages, they didn’t have to think of them as people” (41). Nathan, Molly, Pa, and Mama don’t think of the Shawnees as less than human, and their link to Ezra and Gives-light-as-she-walks puts their principles into practice.

In Weasel, DeFelice shows that evil is not something exceptional or monstrous but rather an everyday occurrence carried out by ordinary people who, together, perpetuate systemic oppression. The characters tend to portray Weasel as a purveyor of otherworldly evil. Nathan says, “The children whispered to us strange tales about Weasel” (15). They whisper because they’re afraid that they’ll provoke the demonic Weasel if they speak loudly. Though Weasel is a villain, he’s not extraordinary. He’s a human who did what countless people did during the forced displacement, oppression, and murder of Indigenous communities—he brought suffering into the world. Nathan realizes Weasel’s banality when he states, “[E]ven if Weasel’s not around, there’s likely to be someone else like him or some other kind of meanness and sorrow and sadness” (119). Nathan learns that brutality is pervasive: It’s not the product of one person but several. He comes to terms with the widespread nature of abhorrent behavior and realizes that constantly worrying about wrongdoing won’t make it vanish, nor will it help him grow.