Transposing Indigenous Storytelling Onto the Structure of There There
by Gabriella Paltoo Sierra
Tommy Orange’s 2018 novel There There centers upon a cast of Native American characters, tracking their journeys as they go to the Big Oakland Powwow, hosted at the Oakland Coliseum. The novel is partitioned into six separate sections: a prologue, four distinct parts, and an interlude in between. Individual characters’ perspectives comprise their own chapters within certain sections. The prologue gives a foundation for readers to understand the histories of colonization throughout the Americas and the western hemisphere and also clarifies misconceptions of Native Americans that have become popularized to overshadow historically accurate accounts of their struggle against oppression. Orange uses character-focused chapters to feature one character’s perspective on a given moment in time. All of the characters suffer from the events of the shooting, but their losses aren’t ranked or pitted against each other. Since no one voice prevails over another, they are unified in their pain. Adding the voices of various characters and using their perspectives to fill in any narrative gaps gives the sense that they are in dialogue with one another, much like a talk (or talking) circle. Talking circles are an Indigenous form of conflict resolution. In her article “Decolonizing Conflict Resolution: Addressing the Ontological Violence of Westernization” author Polly O. Walker discusses the worldviews that underlie Indigenous peacemaking methods; some of the most crucial differences being an emphasis on interconnectedness and healing relationships. Walker brings up the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Talking Circle as one Indigenous way of seeking reconciliation. In the Talking Circle participants are understood as equal and connected to each other (and all things) (534).
In Part Two – “Reclaim” – after the prologue, the ensemble of characters prepare to attend the powwow. An interlude follows after “Reclaim,” explaining concepts that appeared in the first half of the novel and setting up themes that become crucial to the events in the second half. On the day of, the Big Oakland Powwow is disrupted by a shootout that takes place in the coliseum. The shooting takes the lives of innocent bystanders and gravely injures others. The end of the novel is partitioned off from the rest of the novel’s sections, leaving the last sixty pages to address the events immediately before, during, and in a few rare cases, moments after the shooting through the perspectives of each character. Features of the novel resemble Indigenous traditions and storytelling methods, thereby imbuing a hopeful tone to the story. Orange stated in various interviews that he intended to infuse as much hope as he could, even knowing that the tragic nature of the shooting at the end of the novel means not every character will have a happy ending.
Adding multiple voices through polyphony unites character’s perspectives structurally mimics a talking circle, implying that characters have the potential to heal and move forward from the powwow shooting, but must do so together. There There is a polyphonic novel, meaning that it is composed to include various characters’ points of view (Ellis, 10; Murray, 28). In her article “Convergence, Irony and Urban Indian Epistemologies in Tommy Orange’s There There,” Ellis explains that “…polyphony invites responsiveness and active understanding” (10). The responsiveness and active understanding that polyphony invites to the novel adds a hopeful tone; it gives readers a way to understand and empathize with each character given the circumstances they are situated in. Understanding of harm from the perspective of the victim(s) and its perpetrator is crucial to moving forward from a trauma like the Big Oakland Powwow shooting. The way the points of view talk to each other mimics a talking circle, but without the character’s knowledge of each other’s participation. Just as talking circles aim to heal relationships and solve problems, Orange’s use of the characters’ individual responses to the shooting (and their collective responses to similar traumas as a community) hint at the potential for healing through reconnection to Indigenous cultural practices such as the talking circle.
In her literary criticism, “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination,” Toni Morrison poses the question, “[what] happens to the writerly imagination of a black author who is at some level always conscious of representing one’s own race to, or in spite of, a race of readers that understands itself to be ‘universal’ or race free?” (12). Like the black author, other authors of color find themselves accounting for readers that have no familiarity with the cultural backgrounds and histories of people outside of the “default.” Tommy Orange first accounts for his Western/white and Indigenous audiences’ different levels of familiarity with history through structural choices. Native American readers are familiar with their own history, but the connections drawn between tribes and historical events creates solidarity between tribes and peoples throughout the Americas. In the prologue and interlude sections, Orange’s narrator corrects the false narratives that have been construed in the American consciousness about Indigenous peoples. The narrator calls topics such as the true origins of Thanksgiving, genocide of native peoples, and violence against Indigenous peoples “…the truth of what happened in history all over the world… now out of circulation.” (Orange, 7). Orange confirmed the responsibility he felt to “catch up” Western readers on the history of Native Americans in a 2018 interview with Kate Laubernds for Powell’s bookstore. The prologue and interlude’s explanatory function as a way of accomplishing what he felt was his responsibility to non-Native readers. After bridging cultural gaps in understanding, Orange imbues hope in a novel that deals with pain and violence in manners that appeal to two distinct audiences.
Orange appeals to his different audiences’ ideas of hope through organization of the novel. Character-oriented chapters are assembled into one of four different “Parts,” as well as some shorter character chapters that are part of the interlude. This narrative choice closely mirrors author Leslie Marmon Silko’s description of the Pueblo Indian storytelling structure which she says,
“…resembles something like a spider’s web — with many little threads radiating from the
center, crisscrossing each other. As with the web, the structure emerges as it is made and
you must simply listen and trust, as the Pueblo people do, that meaning will be made.” (347).
In the first half of the novel, partitioning the character chapters into sections also allows readers to keep track of the chronological events. Though the timeline is not as immediately clear as Western audiences may be used to, the different sections’ narrative threads are braided together to create a larger story. This organizational choice allows for a dual understanding of the characters on their individual journeys as well as each character’s influence on one another. This can be seen in moments such as when Blue sees her mother, aunt, and nephews to the hospital when Orvil and Edwin are shot (282-283) or when Harvey and Edwin meet for the first time (259). In these moments readers have moments of realization as the connections between characters become apparent. The character’s unique experiences fit into a larger narrative, drawing attention to the way that the characters are divorced from each other in spite of their shared community. These moments of “near-miss” opportunities for connection highlight the paradigms of interconnectedness that Walker mentions in her article, but more specifically, they show how the community ties have fallen into disrepair. For the unaware audience, the hope for establishing community bonds lies in these “near misses” and the potential for repairing community bonds and interpersonal relationships through cultural practices becomes apparent to Indigenous readers.
Orange appeals to his different audiences’ ideas of hope within the structuring of the novel. Orange uses techniques common to Indigenous storytelling to create a circular narrative. This is accomplished by organizing the character based chapters to begin and end with Tony Loneman. Loneman is a key figure in the orchestration of the powwow shooting — but also in putting a stop to it. Tony becomes a hero by sacrificing his body to take down his former co-conspirator when their group harms innocent bystanders in their shootout. By using Tony as the first and final perspective, his sacrifice provides satisfaction to Western readers who find redemption in his noble act. As he dies, Tony flickers between his past memories of childhood with his grandmother and being present in his physical pain (Orange, 289-290). For Native peoples who are used to “expanded conceptualizations of time” (Walker, 533) and trusting in meaning gradually being made apparent, Tony’s shifts between past and present serves as a way for author and reader to build a relationship independent of other audiences based on Orange’s nod to nonlinear ways of understanding time. The hope for Indigenous audiences lies in the structural choices made. This structure includes the use of Indigenous storytelling techniques such as Silko’s web structure; a circular narrative, and the distortion of time. These techniques suggests preservation of cultural practices and epistemologies that are key to healing. Structure in There There creates hopefulness because the mere presence of Indigenous storytelling methods to tell the story of what happened at the Big Oakland Powwow imply that recovery was achieved through connection to culture.
Orange’s creation of a circular narrative is highlighted by his choice to include a prologue and interlude but not an epilogue. In the case of most novels, the presence of a prologue is usually accompanied by an epilogue. The use of a prologue and interlude seem to parallel the story structure of beginning (rising action), middle (climax), end (falling action) that are common in Western conceptualizations of time. The novel provides no comprehensive answer as to “the end” of what happened after the shooting. Orange rejects Western storytelling formats, and instead leaves out details for more open interpretations of ending, which is common for Indigenous storytelling. In combination with Loneman’s character chapter to mimic a circular structure, the lack of engagement with the fallout of the shooting creates hope in an otherwise tragic event. Most of the characters who were shot likely did not receive medical help in time like Orvil and Edwin did. In such dire circumstances, the most hopeful thing that can happen is to not deal with the aftermath. The story only answers the question of what happened at the Big Oakland Powwow. As Silko says, “…one story is only the beginning of many stories, and the sense that stories never truly end.” (50) The structure of the novel adds to the sensation that the story of the Big Oakland Powwow is its own story but also part of the larger, continued (hi)story of the urban Native community in Oakland. Hope is also infused through the implication that whatever happened next for the cast of characters, it was worthy of being told as its own story unto itself rather than live in the shadow of tragedy.
Despite carrying the weight of a tragic event, Orange categorically refuses to call his novel a tragedy. “…non-Native people […] say “It’s so sad.” And, “Why do you write such miserable lives?” […] I’m like, “Hold on a second, this is my life. And I don’t think it’s sad or miserable.” (Shotton, 58) Orange constructs a circular narrative through polyphony, organizational and structural choices to impart aspects of Indigenous epistemology such as talking circles to heal relationships, emphasis on familial and community ties, and wider, nonlinear understandings of time. Tommy Orange’s novel transposes several Indigenous traditions and storytelling methods to create a hopeful tone in a novel that does not shy away from the violent tragedy it centers upon. By using Indigenous cultures and traditions to relate the story of the Big Oakland Powwow shooting, Orange models a new way to share and preserve Indigenous traditions through literature.
Annotated Bibliography
Ellis, Juniper. “Convergence: Irony and Urban Indian Epistemologies in Tommy Orange’s There There.” Postcolonial Text, vol. 15, no. 2, Apr. 2020, pp. 1–16. EBSCOhost,
Ellis’s article provides an examination of circular symbols and how they contribute to larger themes of irony and tribal epistemological influence on urban Native youth. Ellis develops the idea of polyphony invokes two key elements of irony: responsiveness and active understanding. I argue that the polyphonic feature of There, There adds a hopeful tone to a novel that deals with many pains and traumas. These two key elements of irony polyphony invokes are also key elements of conflict resolution and reconciliation. Interesting note: Ellis also connects Orange to Morrison through a reference to Homi Bhabha’s 1987 literary analysis of Beloved. Ellis asserts that relationship and responsiveness structure Orange’s depiction of media such as film, story, graffiti and dance, “…thus creat[ing] a living irony that reveals ‘unspoken, unrepresented pasts that haunt the historical present.’ (12)”
Marmon Silko, Leslie. “‘Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective.’” Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 2013, pp. 48–59.
Marmon Silko explains key structural differences in Laguna Pueblo storytelling from Western storytelling methods. Silko’s essay provides a detailed explanation of how storytelling is regarded in Laguna Pueblo culture and several examples of storytelling to show how ingrained it is into everyday life. This article also serves as a good contrast to Walker’s article. Silko’s essay explains the distinctions in storytelling, whereas Walker’s explains the differences in cultural worldviews that cause those distinctions in storytelling.
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Vintage Books, 1993.
I used the preface from Toni Morrison’s book of literary criticism to add context to the evidence I drew from the interview between Tommy Orange and Kate Laubernds. The question Morrison poses in the preface to Playing in the Dark shows the reason and the implication behind why Orange and other Indigenous writers feel that they need to cater to the “general reader.” Western (primarily white) audiences typically presume themselves to be the universal reader, especially in American literature. Morrison’s question of what happens to the writerly imagination of an author of color when representing their community to the “general reader” is somewhat answered in the choice Orange makes to compensate for his Western audiences by adding exposition in the prologue and interlude.
Murray, Kristin Rozzell. “The ‘Prologue’ and ‘Interlude’ in Tommy Orange’s There, There: Reading Literature with Patient Ears.” Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice, vol. 11, no. 3, 2021, pp. 28–38. EBSCOhost,
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=202122380137&site=ehost-live.
Orange, Tommy. There There. Vintage Books, 2018.
Orange, Tommy, and Kate Laubernds. “Powell’s Interview: Tommy Orange, Author of ‘There There’.” PowellsBooks.Blog, Powell’s Bookstore, 29 May 2018,
https://www.powells.com/post/interviews/powells-interview-tommy-orange-author-of-there-there.
In their interview Orange expressed he felt “a kind of burden to catch the general reader up with what really happened, because history has got it so wrong and still continues to.” I use his explanation of the informative tone of the prologue and the interlude as well as Morrison’s question to explain one purpose of the two sections and later explain why Orange imbues hope and (more or less) satisfying endings in two different ways (since he is accounting for two different audiences).
Shotton, Heather J. “Resisting the Violence through Writing: A Conversation with Tommy Orange.” JSTOR, World Literature Today, Aug. 2019, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7588/worllitetoda.93.4.0056
Waziyatawin Angela Wilson. “Introduction: Indigenous Knowledge Recovery Is Indigenous Empowerment.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 3/4, 2004, pp. 359–72. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4138922.
I utilized this article to look for support for my point about how Orange’s novel being polyphonic resembles a talking circle and that in doing so, looks to Indigenous epistemologies as a way of healing and conflict resolution. In this article, Wilson references an article that appears later in the same volume of the journal that specifically addresses how talking circles and Indigenous conflict resolution strategies are tied to Indigenous worldviews.
Walker, Polly O. “Decolonizing Conflict Resolution: Addressing the Ontological Violence of Westernization.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 3/4, 2004, pp. 527–49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4138930.
In this article Walker explains that for too long Western conflict resolution methodologies have been pushed upon Native communities as neutral, objectively superior methods of conflict resolution without taking into account that Native worldviews that do not align with Western methods. The presumption of Western conflict resolution methodologies as cultural tools equally useful for all communities becomes oppressive when it (re)places itself above the methods for conflict resolution created by and for Indigenous communities without taking into account why these strategies do not translate well to Native cultures. Walker explores four different Indigenous conflict resolution methods (redefined as conflict transformation methods) and how they are distinct from Western strategies, thereby contrasting both worldviews’ understanding of conflict. In particular, Walker discusses how talking circles can be used to reconnect Natives to their cultural approaches to conflict resolution, but also can serve as healing for the community, because of the emphasis placed on healing and restoring relationships and resolving conflicts between individuals.
