News of the World

Though the novel is written in English, the English language itself, in the plot of the narrative, doesn't necessarily carry with it more importance than any other language. Rather, it comes across as being a trade language, or a language for unification/point-of-commonality's sake. The character who is the most educated, the Captain, is a man who is familiar with several languages: Spanish (which he speaks at an advanced level), Plains Sign Language (novice), Kiowa (novice), and German (novice). In fact, while in Durand, the Captain describes his disgust and frustration with the mill owner, whose command of the English language is tentative, and that he does not possess the ability to recognize his own lingual limitations: “The fool sat there and […] considered himself an expert on the English language because it spilled out of his mouth […] and he didn't even have to think about it” (136).

Furthermore, the Captain’s familiarity with other languages reinforces one of the Captain's strongest and most important characteristics: his open-mindedness and understanding and tolerance with cultures and ways different than his own, which is something one can argue is directly related to his knowledge of language and exposure and experience dealing with others.

Even though Johanna is a character torn between two worlds, it’s her multilingual abilities that help her acclimate to new surroundings and even move between the two. Her mind is flexible and open. From a very young age, she learned that there is more than one way to express herself, and more than one name for a physical object. This is an aspect that makes both her and the Captain very three-dimensional characters, rather than the other two-dimensional characters who can only speak one language, or are only familiar with one worldview. Language, then, is a bridge to culture and understanding others.

The Kiowa represent a people with a strong and close relationship to nature. The white European-Americans represent the contrary, a people who use and manipulate their environment for their own designs, and who even invent behaviors and mannerisms completely separate from nature. The two different societies are consistently juxtaposed in the novel, without either one truly gaining an upper hand. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The Kiowa portray a purer, spiritual, and mystic culture that is very atavistic, living very simple lives, and trying to live in harmony with their natural surroundings. Of course, this means that technological advances as simple as printed/written language and the wheel are sacrificed for such a lifestyle. The European-Americans, by contrast, have all the advantages of civilization, but there is a gap created by the separation of man from the natural world, a gap that Johanna is never able to fully bridge, implying that the atavistic connection to the earth is not an easy one to severe once it has been formed.

The role that family plays in the novel is bound with the sense of belonging. The Captain, though born and raised in Georgia, considers San Antonio home because that is where he met his wife, Maria, and where they raised their daughters. Instead of returning to Georgia to be with his daughters and son-in-law, he wants them to move out to Texas, ostensibly because he feels there are better economic opportunities, but the memory of his late wife cannot be devalued.

For Johanna, family is also important. She lost her biological parents, whom she can barely remember. Furthermore, the need for belonging, family, and home is so strong that it doesn’t seem that she is able to remember their demise at the hands of her new, adoptive Kiowa family, for whom she pines after being separated from them. Also, if she can remember it was the Kiowa who killed them, she doesn’t seem too concerned with it.

Despite her tenuous history with family, it is nevertheless something she desires, and even requires, and which she eventually finds in the Captain, and later with John Calley, with whom she builds a family of her own. With Johanna, each family she is with leaves an indelible impression upon her: she retains some knowledge of the German language from her first parents, and the ways of the Kiowa are so ingrained in her that she never fully forgets them. Additionally, the love and care that the Captain gives her is ultimately what saves her and allows her to reintegrate into American culture.

Myriad subtopics of justice emerge throughout the novel: the taking and returning of captives, Reconstruction issues/martial law, frontier justice/lawlessness, the Code of Hammurabi, adoption laws, and child abuse. The issue with captives was difficult and its solutions tenuous at best. The Indian tribes followed a different moral code than Anglo-Americans, and there was so much animosity and war throughout that period that captives were often treated much like POWs, rather than kidnapping victims.

Reconstruction was also a mess. The Southern states were very often unhappy with their treatment by the victorious North, and US politicians were often at odds on how exactly to punish and/or readmit the Southern states to the US. Some, like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, sought lenient terms and desired a quick return. However, some wanted to see the South severely punished for their rebellion. The transition of former slaves, who forever and legally were freed by the Fifteenth Amendment, was obviously very difficult and fraught with tension.

As the book illustrates, the tremendous task of policing the sparsely-populated regions of Texas (and the rest of the American frontier) often resulted in people taking matters into their own hands. The shootout with Almay, and the Horrell brothers killing Mexicans without any repercussions, display how violent things could be. The scene with John Calley, where he and his cousins exact a toll for free, unmolested passage into Durand, and then John Calley's subsequent remorse, raise the question as to what kept areas without official law from devolving into complete anarchy. The Captain brings up the Code of Hammurabi, but Christian values are also subtly hinted at.

Towards the end of the book, with the whole problematic relationship between Johanna and her aunt and uncle, the issue of adoption and child welfare emerges. The abusing aunt and uncle legally have guardianship over Johanna, and the Captain has no legal recourse to remove her from them, even though he cares about her, and treats her well and fairly, loves her as a daughter even.