Swamplandia

Osceola (Ossie) Bigtree is Ava’s sister. She turns 16 at the beginning of the narrative and, like Ava, is grieving the loss of her mother. Osceola lacks Kiwi’s studious interest in academics, and it surprises her family that she is so taken by The Spiritist’s Telegraph, a book on spiritualism and the occult that she finds in the abandoned library boat. Her obsession with ghosts speaks to the novel’s theme of Grief and Loss, and her quest to follow her ghostly boyfriend Louis into the Underworld becomes the catalyst for Ava’s own journey into the depths of the Ten Thousand Island’s murky tangle of mangroves, swamps, and hidden channels.

Although Osceola is not academically inclined, she does frequently surprise her family with her (albeit somewhat hidden) intellect, and there is a sense in which her true nature is overlooked by The Chief, Kiwi, and even the caring Ava. Ava recalls that “she’d say something smart out of nowhere and prove to us that she wasn’t only a dreamer” (110). Osceola possesses a dreamy sort of beauty, and her father initially writes off her interest in the dead Louis as part of a young girl’s burgeoning interest in boys, dating, and the opposite sex, age-appropriate for a girl who is just beginning to see herself as pretty. Here, too, her family initially writes off what turns out to be a serious interest in the occult because they mistake one quality for another. In this case, they fail to see that what reads to them as “boy-crazy” is actually a grief so acute that it borders on pathology.

Osceola’s grief first drives her to attempt to contact the ghost of her mother, but then becomes subsumed by her interest in contacting other ghosts, and her interest in Louis can be read as displacement: What Osceola truly longs for is connection with her mother, barring that she seeks connection with a ghostly boyfriend whom, unlike her mother, she can convince herself that she has successfully contacted. Ultimately even Ava has to admit that her sister is truly struggling, and although she had initially participated in Osceola’s seances, she asks herself, “was she crazy? She was crazy. I hardly needed to ask that question” (118). That the novel ends with Osceola under the care of a therapist supports a more literal reading of Osceola’s character, and the fantastical plot element of her relationship with a ghost becomes an additional way for the author to explore the theme of Grief and Loss.

Kiwi is the third of the Bigtree siblings. Although most of the novel is narrated by Ava, once Kiwi leaves for the mainland, the chapters begin to alternate between Ava and Kiwi. It should be noted, however, that Kiwi’s chapters employ the third person, and Ava remains the sole first-person voice of the story. Kiwi is highly intelligent, and although he does want to help his father, he does think that Swamplandia! is doomed, and he wants his family to make a life for themselves on the mainland. His character (along with his siblings) embodies the theme of Coming of Age, and his primary growth arc focuses on the way that he explores both his educational opportunities and the world of work and professionalism.

Kiwi is studious and dedicates himself to the pursuit of knowledge, even during the years of his somewhat lackadaisical homeschooling. Because he is so far ahead of the curriculum, he designs his own course of study, and Ava observes that he “would rather conjugate Latin than do any of the chores the park required of him” (29). His dream is to take the SAT and obtain a real college degree, and part of why he leaves for the mainland is to find a GED course to enroll in while studying for the standardized college entrance exam. His erudition and the auto-didactic nature of his education become impediments when he begins working at the World of Darkness, because he speaks in a manner that most of his coworkers find snobbish and stilted. Although he does make a couple of friends at the mainland theme park, and he experiences an increase in social capital after saving the life of a drowning tourist, his desire for higher education separates him from his peers. Like his siblings (and indeed his father), he is characterized by both alienation and isolation.

Although Kiwi is dedicated to scholastics and formal education, he pursues work and an eventual career also. He is intelligent enough to realize that he must find a job when on the mainland, both to support himself and to help his family, and although the work that he initially finds is entry-level and low paying, he is able to rise through the ranks to a better position, and then leverages his heroic rescue of one of the park’s patrons into a spot in the team of pilots-in-training for an upcoming, environmentally themed ride. By the conclusion of the novel, Kiwi is a pilot with a salary and benefits, and it is understood that he will continue to contribute financially to his family as they begin a new life after the sale of Swamplandia!. For Ava, “growing up” means moving away from the loss of her mother by figuring out how to incorporate her mother’s teachings into her everyday life, and for Osceola, “growing up” comes to mean addressing her mental health issues and melancholia, but for Kiwi, coming of age is about education, self-development, and career.

The Chief is father to Ava, Osceola, and Kiwi Bigtree, and the owner and proprietor of Swamplandia!. A gregarious showman, the Chief tends to treat all of life, including conversations with his immediate family, as a performance. Although his theme park had been successful prior to his wife’s death, he struggles to keep the business afloat after the loss of his star performer, and his plans to modernize the park do not seem practical or rooted in reality. He does not spend very much of his energy parenting or taking care of the household, and after Hilola dies, his children never seem to have clean laundry or balanced meals to eat. In spite of his shortcomings, he is loving in his own way, and is sympathetic in spite of his somewhat negligent parenting.

The Chief was born into Swamplandia!, and like the other members of his family, was given a faux-Indigenous name as part of the park’s gimmicky appeal to tourists looking for an “authentic” experience of backwater Everglades life. He dresses himself and the family members up in mock-Seminole apparel, and although there is much to condemn in this kind of cultural appropriation, the author seems to treat it with an eye towards neutrality. The text does not explicitly label their bizarre and inaccurate depictions of Indigenous dress and custom as problematic. For the Chief, the faux-Seminole personae are all part of the larger picture of showmanship that is necessary to appeal to tourists, many of whom hail from far-flung parts of the country and come to Swamplandia! with preconceived notions of what Indigenous cultures of the Everglades look like. The Chief wants to give these parkgoers a satisfying experience, and much of his personality and the way that he interacts with people can be summed up as “all part of the act.” He is a folksy, down-to-earth character in spite of his showmanship, given to using phrases like “that’s not total bullcrap” when talking to tourists (48).

Readers get the sense that his wife Hilola, in addition to her headlining role at the park, had been the primary caregiver for her children and the household’s de facto manager. After her death, the children slowly run out of clean clothes to wear and resort to pillaging half-expired, nutritionally void dry goods from their pantry. The Chief is much more interested in his plan of “Carnival Darwinism,” which entails spending large amounts of money to import new species of animals to the park, modernizing the attractions and equipment, and a series of other dubious “investments” that even the teenage Kiwi can see that the family cannot afford and are not guaranteed to help Swamplandia! remain in business. And yet, in his own way, the Chief is as devoted to the family as Ava and Kiwi, for Kiwi learns that he has been secretly supplementing the family income for many years by appearing in various acts at a mainland casino. Ultimately, the Chief is forced to give up on his dreams, move the family to the mainland, and try a different way of life altogether.