Peter Emanuel

ENG181

Project 3 Final Draft

April 18,

2016
Hey Jude and 7th Generation Blues
Hey Jude, one of the many famous songs by The Beatles, was
actually meant to be a piece Paul McCartney wanted to write for his
son, but it ended up becoming a major hit. The purpose of the song
was for Paul to make his son, Jules, feel better when Jules needed the
motivation to chase a girl and get her to fall in love with him. Paul does
this by using phrases such as You were made out to go and get
her(The Beatles) and Remember to let her into your heart(The
Beatles) to invoke optimism about Jules current situation and to
provide inspiration for Jules to achieve his goal. The lyrics seemed to
resonate with many other listeners too as they became so popular; the
journey to finding love is something that most people experience at
some point in their lives (Kim). What is interesting about the song,
though, is that Jude can be a name given to both genders, so even
though the song was written for a boy, its lyrics can be applied
universally. Such is the case in Wabanaki Blues, when Melissa
Tantaquidgeon Zobel presents Mona Lisa LaPierre, a girl who has
complex relationships with two different guys, Beetle and Del,
throughout the course of the book. She must handle her love life while
simultaneously fulfilling her grandparents requests and solving a

murder case that she decides to revive after many years of it being
forgotten about (Zobel). Mona, the Native youth that she is, is put in a
position to fulfill the wishes of others. It is almost as if Mona is the
object of a prophecy. In fact, Mona fits the mold of the Haudenosaunee
7th Generation Prophecy (the Anishinaabe refer to it as the Seven Fires
Prophecy), where the current youth will
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lead the regeneration of the nations and of the earth(Bergstrom 2) by
putting an end to pollution. The themes of optimism and inspiration
that run through Hey Jude reflect Monas role in Wabanaki Blues as a
model representation of how a member of the 7th Generation can fulfill
their prophecy to save the world. In creating this role for Mona, Zobel
makes the statement that the 7th Generation has the power to bring
about positive change. Regardless of whether prophecy is true or not,
it serves as the vehicle to motivate Mona in Wabanaki Blues and other
7th Generation youth in the real world to unlock their potentials.
The reference to Hey Jude in Wabanaki Blues serves to give
Mona the optimism and inspiration she needs to embrace the path that
she will henceforth follow. Mona and her friend Lizzy constantly text
message back and forth, using lyrics of different songs as code to
mean something else. While Monas text to Lizzy saying that she is
trying to take a sad song and make it better(The Beatles qtd. in
Zobel 154) is only one of the many song references the two of them

text to each other, this specific reference in particular does a very good
job of characterizing Monas current emotional state. Her sad song
refers to the fact that she doesnt believe she will get the chance to
see Beetle or Del ever again and that she doesnt believe her parents
will support her in solving the Mia Delaney murder case. That being
said, Mona still intends to make it better, meaning that she is going
to go ahead and figure out her love life, solve the murder case, and
return to New Hampshire still. I believe this to be the pivotal moment
in the story where Mona

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looks inward at her insecurities. She can either settle for being the
girlwho never, ever smiles(Zobel 154) or she can embrace her
uniqueness and climb out of her
depressed state. The fact that she uses that line from Hey Jude is an
indication that she intends to do the latter, with Rosalita (her guitar) as
her vehicle to do so. Not to mention, the lyric The minute you let her
under your skin/Then you begin to make it better(The Beatles) in Hey
Jude perfectly describes Monas attitude towards her music. The
minute Mona embraces her musical talent she can unlock her full
potential and gain confidence in her abilities. As to immediately
reward her optimism, Zobel has Monas mother tell her that she was
granted a five thousand dollar check from winning a song-writing

contest. In another positive turn of events, Beetle contacts Mona and

they agree to start producing together as a team. Similarly, Mona is
able to return to New Hampshire, further investigate, and eventually
solve the murder case. Zobel clearly didnt choose to include
references to Hey Jude for no reason. The positive outlook that the
song provides fits very well in this specific portion of the novel, where
Mona transitions from expressing feelings of low self-confidence in her
love life and pessimism about her trip to New Hampshire to feelings of
optimism and belief in her talents. She ends up coming of age and
saving the woods in her own unique way, as she was prophesized to
do.
One of the major themes of Wabanaki Blues definitely appears to
be how prophecies and predictions or plans of the future drive
character development. While part of what may be Monas way of
indirectly fulfilling her grandparents wishes involved finishing the longforgotten murder case and coming of age within
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her community, Mona is explicitly told she is prophesized to sacrifice
Great Bear in addition. Monas decision to sacrifice Great Bear parallels
an Anishinaabe Native remarking on his experience as a youth, where
he was exposed to a Sister (teacher) at a Catholic school telling the
class how they used to sacrifice lambs because lambs dont have
spirits(Bergstrom et. Al. 134). However, as a child he was taught that

Everything has a spirit inside it, some kind of will for life(Bergstrom
et. Al. 134), a viewpoint that contrasted with that of the Sister. The
Anishinaabe did not advocate for sacrificing these animals while the
Sister did. We can extend these contrasting viewpoints to Wabanaki
Blues with Bilki and Grumps, Monas grandparents. While Grumps leans
toward the side of preserving the bears, Bilki is more concerned with
Monas spiritual journey, which involves sacrificing one (Zobel).
Although Grumps dies but Bilki continues to talk to Mona even from the
dead, meaning that in retrospect Bilkis advice is more influential,
Zobel does not give a clear depiction of how or if Mona even kills Great
Bear. She may have hit it with her truck or she may have been
hallucinating all along. She may have sacrificed it or she may have not.
Since the next two books in the trilogy have not come out yet, there is
no closure on this confusion, however regardless of whether she
sacrificed the bear literally or figuratively, it is obvious that Mona still
went through a spiritual trial to fulfill her prophecy. One must
extrapolate since Wabanaki Blues is an ongoing series, however I
maintain that the fact that Mona had not completed her grandparents
requests and thus needed to finish her time in New Hampshire was
enough motivation for

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her to go back and to set straight the other aspects of her life that
were bothering her such as the murder case and her relationships with
Beetle and Del. It would
appear, then, that a prophecy s truth and credibility is contingent on
the object or objects of the prophecy believing it to be true. Even if no
one else believes that the 7th Generation can save the world, as long as
the youth who the prophecy actually talk about take their
responsibilities to heart, the prophecy is practically true.
From Monas grandparents perspectives, the prophecy described
in Wabanaki Blues took both a literal and a figurative angle, however
Zobel does not have Mona question if is it possible that both
grandparents are wrong. It is assumed that Mona would be in
agreement with either one or the other and it is not mentioned the
possibility that Mona would disagree with both of them. In other words,
there is a third side to consider here. What if Mona had gone back to
New Hampshire and solved the murder case, rekindled her love
triangle, but never fulfilled the rest of the prophetical tasks required of
her? Although this did not happen, it is important to consider the fact
that even the Native youths who are the objects of the 7th Generation
prophecy may not believe the prophecies told to them in the first
place. For example, there is a member of the Juaneno Band of Mission
Indians who, when interviewed, said that the earth mother balances
itself through natural disasters(Johnson 594) so there is no need for

the 7th Generation to fix it. This is extremely contradictory to the notion
that the 7th Generation will restore Mother Earth as a group, instead of
each individual taking it upon his or herself to

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carry the world upon [his or her] shoulders(The Beatles). The
interview proves that, first of all, not all Native Americans are involved
in the 7th Generation prophecy
(a misconception), and that even those who have been exposed to it
in the past do not necessarily believe it. The problem with a prophecy
is that it is inherently subject to skepticism because the ability to
predict the future or change an outcome is supernatural. However,
there is an argument to be made that supports the credibility of the
role of the 7th Generation and it is that the prophecies of the first six
generations ended up being correct. The 4th Fire, as an example,
predicted the coming of the White race and forewarned our ancestors
to be wary(Bergstrom et. Al. 1), so it is evident that the Anishinaabe
had an accurate track record as it pertains to Colonial America and
Canada. Perhaps it is appropriate to concede in that there is a higher
force intertwined in these prophecies that allows the prophecy-givers
to blur the line between the natural and the supernatural after all. Bilki,
Monas grandmother, is definitely able to do this as she can speak as a
dead spirit, and although Wabanaki Blues is a work of fiction, the

messages about prophecy that Zobel creates transcend the pages of

the book and apply to the 7th Generation prophecy in real life.
The journey Mona takes in her coming of age sets her up to be a
model candidate for a 7th Generation individual, one who exceeds preexisting notions and expectations while sticking to the passions at her
core and not becoming someone she isnt. Mona is definitely subject to
low expectations by the Colt High faculty, most notably Principal
Dibble. When Mona wears a shirt to school that is offensive
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to animals, Dibble calls Mona and her parents in and tells them that
she believes all of your people(Zobel 17) treat animals in the same
manner. This appears to me to be a racist assumption and when we
find out that it is clear that Bilki and Grumps
have two different types of respect (literal and figurative) for sacrificing
Great Bear, Dibbles assumption is shot down as it becomes clear that
two Native Americans would like to treat an animal in two different
ways. Furthermore, Principal Dibbles double standard of dress code
also demonstrates her false assumptions about Native Americans. She
thinks Native Americans do not know how to behave and dress
properly as she does not punish Rasima, another Colt High student, for
wearing suggestive outfits to school, yet she punishes Mona for
wearing a mere graphic T-shirt (Zobel 16). Dibbles setting of this
double standard demonstrates a real-life parallel as it supports the

theory that Native students begin to embody the negative

perceptions teachers have of them(Bergstrom et. Al. 69). When a
Native youth is told, directly or indirectly, they cant do
anything(Bergstrom et. Al. 69), their self-esteems are lowered which
would discourage them from standing up for themselves.
Mona follows Paul McCartneys suggestion to take a sad song
and make it better(The Beatles) by expressing her musical passion to
combat the academic and social pressures she faced at Colt High,
instead of allowing Dibbles negativity to get to her. All of the work
Mona put in while in New Hampshire by tending to her grandparents
requests, chasing her love interests, and solving the murder case, as I
suggested earlier, also helps to combat the negativity she faced while
in high school.
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Mona, then, would be a great role model for a 7th Generation youth who
is struggling through school or struggling to find hope.

Works Cited
Bergstrom, Amy, Linda Miller. Cleary, and Thomas D. Peacock. The
Seventh
Generation: Native Students Speak About Finding the Good
Path. Charleston, W. Va:
ERIC, 2003. Print.

Johnson, Willard. "Contemporary Native American Prophecy in

Historical Perspective. Journal of the American Academy of Religion
64.3 (1996): 575- 612. JSTOR. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.
S., Kim. "Song Analysis # 2: "Hey Jude" - The Beatles." Web log post.
Optimism &
Inspiration in Rock/Alternative. 1 Apr. 2009. Web. 28
Mar. 2016.
<http://kimbospoetryofsongblog.blogspot.com>.
Zobel, Melissa Tantaquidgeon. Wabanaki Blues. Scottsdale, AZ:
Poisoned Pencil, 2015.
Print. The Wabanaki Trilogy: Book 1