55 pages • 1 hour read
Ivan DoigThe Whistling Season
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Coincidentally, on the day that Oliver decides to confront Rose about the need for a cook, Rose announces she is going to take on the kitchen. However, she intends to clean the kitchen, not to cook, reinforcing the message of her original advertisement. To cheer up his sons, Oliver takes them to the Big Ditch, intending to eat dinner later at Rae’s house. When the family reaches the Big Ditch, they find that the revival tent is gone, and hear that their teacher has eloped with Brother Jubal, the evangelist. The news stuns Oliver and Paul.
Chapter 7 Summary
The chapter begins with Morrie addressing all the students in the school, having taken Miss Trent’s place. The narrative then shifts slightly back in time to the process of convincing Morrie to take over the school. First, Oliver must convince Morrie and Rose that Morrie should become the new schoolteacher; then Oliver must make Morrie’s case to the rest of the school board.
The scene returns to the schoolhouse where, starting with the first grade and going through the eighth grade, Morrie greets everyone personally. He allows Barbara to change her name during the school day to “Rabrab” and he stops to staunch the nosebleed of Martha. He smoothly moves from discussing the importance of a person’s name to a mathematics lesson.
At the end of the day, Rose and the Millirons are at the teacherage that is now Morrie’s home. Rose begins to clean, commenting on the housekeeping habits of the previous occupant. She sends Paul outside to draw water to mop the floor, allowing him to see the pasture where the students tether their horses every day. For the first time, Paul recognizes the essential nature of the school to the community. Morrie invites them to stay for supper—amazing the Millirons by displaying the skill that Rose lacks in the kitchen.
Chapter 8 Summary
The Milliron brothers take Morrie to a buffalo fall, where members of the Blackfoot Nation formerly herded buffalo off a cliff. It has become a location for finding arrowheads and other historical items. As they climb back to the top of the cliff, they hear a shot and see Brose Turley on horseback chasing a wolf with a trap on one leg. Using his horse and rifle to herd the wolf into a box canyon, Brose corners the animal and kills it without damaging its hide. Paul knows that he will dream that night of what he has seen.
Chapter 9 Summary
Paul has a bad dream after seeing the wolf hunt. At school, Morrie delegates the task of raising the American flag every morning to Paul and his classmate Carnelia. Because they have never done it, Morrie tells Eddie to assist them. Eddie refuses, then jerks the flag away, threads the rope through it, and raises it.
Morrie announces that the school will hold a spelling bee. Instead of participating, Paul takes out a book. Classmates explain to a puzzled Morrie that Paul never loses in the spelling bee, and therefore sits out. Morrie makes Paul the object of a lesson on the variability of language before allowing him to read. As the spelling bee progresses, Eddie flounders on a word and must sit down. Feeling humiliated, he strikes Paul's friend Grover. Many boys leap to their feet, ready to strike back. Morrie tells everyone to sit down but, as he walks to the front of the classroom, Eddie accidentally strikes him on his hairline. Morrie manages to remain calm and tells Eddie he will see him at the end of the day.
When the brothers tell Oliver what happened that night, he grows concerned about how Brose will react to Eddie being kept after school. Since the boys are planning to work on their arrowhead display after school the next day, Oliver says he will come to the school as well.
Chapter 10 Summary
Sitting alongside the road on his way to Great Falls, Paul recalls what happened in the school room the next afternoon. As the Milliron brothers worked on their arrowhead collection, polishing and making labels, Eddie’s father walks in. Menacingly, he orders Eddie to leave with him. Morrie tells Eddie he is welcome to go, and that he can finish making up his time the next day. Once Eddie is gone Brose demands that the brothers leave, though they do not. He threatens to beat Morrie and closes in on him, at which Morrie displays brass knuckles on either hand. Brose says he can wait and then leaves. Oliver arrives and has words outside with Brose, who then rides away. Morrie asks the boys to keep the encounter with Brose a secret.
Chapter 11 Summary
On the last morning of the school week, Morrie displays the rattler from a rattlesnake. Paul realizes this is a fresh rattle. He quizzes Morrie about it afterward, asking if perhaps Brose put rattlesnake outside the teacherage, but Morrie tells him not to jump to conclusions. That night, Paul dreams about rattlesnakes and wakes early the next morning. Rose realizes he has had a troubled night and asks him to help her with the laundry. She talks about how the hard work she is doing now has freed her from the pitfalls of her more luxurious past.
That weekend Aunt Eunice complains about Morrie, saying that Oliver should never have put him in charge of the school.
Chapters 6-11 Analysis
Education in and out of the classroom comes to the fore in the second section of the narrative. Chapter 6 brings news that the former teacher, Miss Trent, has abruptly left. Chapter 7 begins not with reports of committee meetings and interviews but with an attention-getting young man standing before a class of students for the first time and greeting them in a unique way, “Good morning, young scholars” (108). Paul reports that the children find his appearance and presentation intriguing from the beginning:
Morrie stood before us like an emissary from those farthest places in our books, where Prime Minister is attired themselves in tweed and a vest and a tie as prominent as the chin napkin. Topped off in this case with the imperial mustache, of course (108).
From this point forward, classroom education only gets more interesting. Morrie’s slow-motion roll call, with each child standing for a spoken introduction, reveals that education will be personal. Morrie takes class time to debate with Rabrab the purpose and limits of her desire to make a new name for herself.
This style of pedagogy is intentionally challenging. Morrie observes the limits of each student’s knowledge and ability, then encourages them to move beyond these apparent limits. His teaching is also creative. The spelling bees Morrie conducts involve the whole class, resulting in cheers, shouts, and elation. Even correction for misdeeds is more creative than punitive. When he makes Eddie stay after class, he requires him to sit and do nothing for an hour, which is precisely what Eddie does every day anyway; thus, Morrie confronts and prepares Eddie to learn.
As befits the theme of Seizing All Opportunities for Education, the novel contains scenes of learning outside the classroom as well. The Milliron brothers lead Morrie to a buffalo fall to gather relics and bones. He helps them uncover the significance of what they are unearthing, as when he points out that an obsidian arrowhead must have originated a long distance away from the spot where they found it, implying that the Blackfeet traded with other indigenous nations. On the same excursion, they watch a brutal display when Brose hunts down a wolf.
Morrie’s new position as the village teacher reveals his learning, abilities, and priorities that remained hidden while he was cutting wood and cleaning chicken houses. Doig contrasts the refined, articulate lover of education—Morrie—with the unrefined and cruel Brose Turley, who becomes more prominent in this section. Confronting Morrie in the classroom, Brose acknowledges that he prefers preachers over teachers and asserts his parental authority over Eddie. While the juxtaposition of these two characters appears to pit the value of education against brutality and ignorance, the reality is more nuanced. Morrie’s unexpected display of brass knuckles which he clearly knows how to use not only communicates to Brose that Morrie will fight back if needed but also hints at the complexity of Morrie’s past that will not be fully revealed until the end of the novel. Morrie himself is adept at Seizing All Opportunities for Education.
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By Ivan Doig
