When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the novel’s depictions of racism.

Two Feathers (also known as Nancy Benge) is a Cherokee performer and the titular protagonist of When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky. Verble describes her as having “black, straight hair” (22) which “frame[s] her face and curl[s] toward her mouth at the start of each day” (22). Although Two “[isn’t] a fullblood,” she’s “dark enough in the summer to raise suspicions she might be a Negro” (22). Two is the only Indigenous person working at Glendale Park, and Verble emphasizes her loneliness and isolation. Two was born on the Miller Brothers’ 101 Ranch near Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her family still lives. Far from “her parents, siblings, and extended family,” Two feels isolated among the other workers at Glendale (25). After her accident, Two feels more vulnerable and lonelier than ever, and she longs for “her mother, her aunt, her brothers. Especially her brothers” (240). The emphasis on family in these passages demonstrates Two’s deep homesickness and explains her frequent attempts to visit animals she considers kin, such as Adam the buffalo and the bears, highlighting the novel’s thematic interest in

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