73 pages • 2 hours read
Richard WagameseMedicine Walk
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 22-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
Eldon and Angie work in logging camps until she becomes pregnant with Frank, and they move to a cabin on a lake. Frank senses that Eldon was afraid to be a father, and Eldon agrees. Eldon felt ashamed of what he did to Jimmy and his own mother: “I was ashameda myself, Frank. Bone deep ashamed” (220). Eldon was also afraid that he was too weak to be a father:
I wanted to be strong for her. I really did. But layin’ there knowin’ how weak I really was brung on the dark in me. The dark that always sucked me back into drinkin’ (220).
Eldon starts to drink again and isn’t there when Angie goes into labor. Angie dies as a result. The doctor says, “She had a chance if she had made it here on time” (222). Eldon only knows one way to “quiet” (222) his pain: He drinks even more and becomes the mess of a man Frank encounters in adulthood.
Chapter 23 Summary
Frank is angry with Eldon. Because of Eldon, Frank will never get to see or know his mother. Eldon wanted Bunky to raise Frank because Frank reminded Eldon too much of Angie. Eldon tells Frank that he was named after Benjamin Franklin because of Franklin’s experiment with electricity: “Took courage […] to want something for others like that” (231). As Eldon sleeps, Frank thinks about his mother and his loss. Frank hopes he can “claim some of her energy as his own” (232) and realizes that his “life was told as the stories of vague ghosts” (232). After Eldon wakes up, Frank and Eldon stare at each other. Frank tells Eldon he should have told the story before, but Eldon says he couldn’t because “I ain’t never had a hurt like that” (233). Frank understands, and they hold hands in reconciliation. Eldon asks to be helped up and walks to the edge of the cliff over the valley where he extends his hands and whispers, “I’m sorry” (234).
Chapters 22-23 Analysis
As much as the novel is about a journey toward death, it is also about Frank and Eldon’s personal journeys to overcome painful histories and move toward forgiveness and understanding. The news of Angie’s death devastates Frank because he will never get to know his mother or experience life with her. Frank demonstrates wisdom in the way he accepts this traumatic loss: Although Frank is angry with Eldon, he does not blame Eldon and even comes to understand why Eldon abandoned him. Eldon’s intention was to protect Frank: Eldon recognized that he couldn’t be the father who Frank needed, and he wanted to entrust Frank to Bunky, a father figure capable of raising Frank to be a good man. Now that Frank is suffering the loss of his mother, he realizes how much Eldon has suffered, and Frank no longer judges him. This shared experience allows Frank and Eldon to understand each other.
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By Richard Wagamese
