94 pages • 3 hours read
Ben MikaelsenTouching Spirit Bear
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A 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.
Themes
Healing and Reconciliation, Both Within and Outside of Oneself
Sometimes a person must be nearly destroyed in order to heal. This is the case for Cole, the protagonist of Touching Spirit Bear. First, Cole nearly ruins his life by attacking Peter—an action that would have landed him in jail if Garvey had not taken an interest in Cole and brought him to the Healing Circle instead. Cole is again almost destroyed after the Spirit Bear’s attack, but this dramatic near-death experience illustrates the broader trajectory of his life: Each time Cole acts out violently, he brings himself closer to his own destruction. It is because of the impact of the Spirit Bear, as well as the friendship of Edwin and Garvey, that Cole can finally overcome his anger and his past, forgiving himself and everyone who has hurt him. When the Spirit Bear revisits Cole as he lies dying, it shows trust in and forgiveness of Cole. This experience deeply affects Cole, and he vows to live a life of honesty and forgiveness afterward.
The Spirit Bear is one of several symbols of healing in the novel, including the Healing Circle, the at.óow, the soaking pond, and the ancestor stone. The Healing Circle is an ancient Indigenous tradition that focuses on healing the community, the victim, and the perpetrator of the crime. Cole attends several Healing Circles that decide his fate, and it is the Healing Circle that sends him to the Alaskan island to reflect. The at.óow blanket that Garvey gifts Cole serves as a symbol of protection, warmth, friendship, and trust, all of which aid in Cole’s healing journey. The soaking pond is a place where Edwin teaches Cole to focus on happiness and let his emotions wash away. Cole does this every day, learning to soothe himself and let go of what angers him. Cole also pushes an ancestor stone down a hill, allowing him to roll his anger away.
When Cole returns to the island, two major events drive his healing journey: his dance of anger, and his reconciliation with Peter. As Cole learns how his actions affected others and what caused him to act that way, he admits that it is his fault he was sent to the island, his fault he got hurt, and his fault for not wanting to change. He no longer blames anyone else for his problems or his past—not even his father. Cole performs several animal dances to learn from the animals and help himself heal, but one particular dance matters more than the others: the dance of anger. Edwin explains to Cole that he should not perform this dance until he is ready, and when Cole feels like he is, he fully experiences the moment. He relives each experience that angered him, and it becomes his longest, most inspired and passionate dance of all. He kicks the embers into the forest, screams out pleas of forgiveness into the night, and cries for what seems like forever. Cole wants to “throw up that anger like bad food and be rid of it forever” (140), so he strikes at the nearby tree, repeatedly telling himself that he forgives himself for all the hurt he has caused.
Full healing, however, requires helping someone else heal. Cole therefore knows he must reconcile with Peter, who he learns is suffering mentally and invites to the island. Peter reluctantly comes to the island, staying far away from Cole for the first few months. Peter then begins testing Cole, hoping to push him into acting out violently. Cole’s kindness to Peter is persistent and patient (qualities he learned from the beaver at the pond). This conflict culminates when Peter attacks Cole at the pond. Cole does not fight back, and eventually Peter gives up. The boys witness the Spirit Bear together, and Cole knows that they have finally forgiven themselves and each other. To symbolize this, Cole and Peter carve a circle at the bottom of Cole’s totem pole.
Life as a Circle
The principle of life as a circle is a central theme and a lesson that Edwin and Garvey impart to Cole as he heals on the island. In fact, Cole’s journey begins at a Healing Circle—a community gathering organized by a Tlingit elder and designed to help bring healing to the perpetrator, victims, and community after a serious crime. One central principle of a Healing Circle is the idea that everything is connected. This means that when Cole acted out against Peter, he hurt not only Peter but also himself and his community. At the Healing Circle, this becomes clear as people speak out about their fear for their children amid community violence. Garvey, Cole’s probation officer and mentor, tells Cole that “life is a circle” when he explains the Healing Circle and why Cole would benefit from giving it a chance (29).
Cole eventually begins to understand the circular nature of life by himself. As he is dying on the forest floor, he sees a full moon drifting “ghostlike among the broken clouds” (61). He is delirious and cannot remember what Edwin and Garvey told him about circles, but he knows that the shape is important. The word “ghostlike” is also used to describe the Spirit Bear, indicating that the Spirit Bear plays some part in teaching Cole about this circle. It is in this moment, as Cole stares up at the moon, that he remembers the baby sparrows and goes to search for them. He finds that they have died after the tree fell in the storm, but new life has already come to replace them. The episode allows him to see the truth about what life is: energy and choice in a circular pattern. Like the sparrows, Cole knows he will some day die and become part of the earth again. However, he resolves that until that day, he will live more fully and inject meaning into everything he does: “[Y]es, someday [death] would be part of his circle […] But not now!” (65).
When Cole returns to the island six months later, he creates meaning in his life and forges trust and friendship with Edwin, Garvey, and eventually even Peter. Just as the Spirit Bear sparked Cole’s recognition that he is part of the same infinite loop as the bear, it returns when Peter and Cole finally resolve their conflict: a symbol of the nature of life as a circle. When Cole helps Peter heal, he heals himself and completes the circle: “I’m part of some big circle that I don’t understand. And so are you. Life, death, good and bad, everything is part of that circle. When I hurt you, I hurt myself, too. I don’t think I’ll ever heal from what I did to you, but I’m sorry, Peter” (169). The two boys symbolize this transformation by carving a perfect circle onto Cole’s totem pole in the place reserved for his anger. Garvey guesses that they chose a circle because “every part of a circle is both a beginning and an end […] And everything is one” (171).
The Damage Caused by Bullying and Control
A central theme in Touching Spirit Bear is the damage caused by bullying and control. Within the novel, Cole is both a victim and a perpetrator of bullying. He is bullied by his father, ignored by his mother, and tossed around by the justice system. Cole also bullies others, verbally attacking and lying to people as well as viciously assaulting Peter Driscal, leaving him with permanent brain damage and emotional scars. The pain and trauma that Cole suffered at the hands of his father is one of the primary reasons why Cole must learn to heal, forgive, and accept his past.
Mikaelsen creates a character portrait of a boy who is shaped by the abuse and isolation he has experienced throughout his short life. Cole’s parents both struggle with alcohol addiction. Cole’s mother is not violent, but Cole’s father regularly beats and yells at Cole, sometimes injuring him severely. When Cole comes home late, his father strikes him multiple times with a belt buckle, yelling, “You think life’s a game! You think you’re in charge! You think I’m a big joke!” (44). Cole’s mother attempts to intervene but retreats quickly, fearing what her husband may do to her. The damage of this abuse is deep-rooted and permeates every aspect of Cole’s life. Cole starts out just like his father: angry, violent, and scared. He blames the world for his problems, just as his father does, and takes his anger out on anyone and anything he can. Cole even manages to bully the Spirit Bear, although the bear does not react or feel threatened by Cole. Cole is perhaps the biggest bully to himself, often sinking into negative thought patterns and allowing himself to act destructively.
In his first major act of defiance, Cole burns down the shelter that Edwin built for him on the island. For Cole, the act “mocked every bully that had ever picked on him. He laughed at every time he had ever been teased, every time he’d been arrested, every time his parents had argued” (27). This moment represents the first shift in Cole, because although his outward attitude does not change, the act symbolizes his desire to let go of his past. Cole is eventually able to forgive his father and himself when he learns that his father, like Cole, is afraid and confused; he cannot blame his father for his actions because he is simply the victim of a generational pattern of violence. Cole slowly lets go of his anger toward his father by rolling the stone down the hill each day, allowing his anger to roll away with it.
In addition to forgiving his bully, Cole seeks to help those he himself has bullied. Cole recommends that Peter come to the island so the two of them can heal together. Peter remains afraid of Cole for the first few months that he is on the island. He pushes Cole, trying to test him and see if he is still the bully he was before. Cole proves that he has changed, resisting the temptation to fight back, even when Peter is punching. Despite the past, Cole slowly earns Peter’s trust, and the two are able to forgive themselves and each other, moving forward with a new perspective and breaking the cycle of violence.
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