56 pages • 1 hour read
Kristin HannahThe Four Winds
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Loreda and Elsa sit on the porch swing, staring at the blighted and snow-covered land. Loreda apologizes for blaming her mother after Rafe left, and she offers to get a job. When Elsa responds that “there are no jobs” (151), Loreda once again suggests they move west. Elsa refuses, however, arguing that the land is still their best hope, meager though it may be.
Spring brings hope that the drought will finally end, and for the first time in a very long time, the house brims with optimism. As they dance to Tony’s fiddle, they hear the first few drops of rain. Soon, it becomes a downpour, and they run outside to relish the life-saving water. That night, they celebrate Loreda’s 13th birthday. Rose passes around the family talisman, a penny Tony found in the streets of Sicily, a sign that he and Rose should move to America. Loreda refuses to make a wish on it, however. She doesn’t believe in the power of luck. Tony, Rose, and Elsa see the damp earth and the small green shoots protruding from the ground, and hope surges in their hearts at last.
Chapter 14 Summary
The rain is only a brief tease, followed by yet another stretch of unseasonable heat. The hint of growth following the rain is soon dead, and the family’s optimism dies with it. One afternoon, after they have made soap and left it to cool in the barren root cellar, their gelding Milo collapses in the barn. They have no choice but to shoot him. Through her tears, Loreda takes Tony’s revolver and does the job herself. They wonder how long it will be before they are all on the verge of death. As Loreda leaves the barn, she sees an approaching dust storm.
For over a week, the storm batters the house, filling it with a fine grit that they can’t help but breathe in. Anthony fares the worst, wheezing, coughing, and suffering stomach pains. Elsa tries to milk the cow, but it has no milk left. They decide to sell both cows to the government for $16 apiece.
Chapter 15 Summary
The storm finally abates, and Elsa wakes to find Anthony struggling to breathe and burning with fever. He has a seizure, and Elsa can only watch helplessly. Desperate to help him, she carries him outside and lays him in the wheelbarrow, determined to push him into town to see the doctor. She makes it nearly a mile before Tony, Rose, and Loreda catch up, offering to help. When they reach town, they carry Anthony into the makeshift Red Cross hospital. The doctor diagnoses him with “dust pneumonia” and advises Elsa, “[I]f you want to save him, get him out of Texas” (173). Later that day, Elsa tells Tony and Rose that she has to leave.
Chapter 16 Summary
The family makes plans to move to California. They sell the cows and pack a few essentials into Tony’s truck. While studying maps, Lonesome Tree’s last remaining banker drives up to warn Tony that the bank is prepared to foreclose on part of his farm unless he can pay the $400 due. Tony doesn’t have the money, so his land will be sold at auction.
Tony and Elsa walk into town—Tony to attend another town meeting with another government representative and Elsa to visit Anthony. The doctor tells her Anthony is improving and can go home in a few days, after which they will leave for the West Coast. Tony, meanwhile, emerges from the meeting despondent over the lack of help.
As Elsa packs and prepares food for the trip, she pays a final visit to the small family cemetery. She notices a massive black shadow in the sky, moving fast, flocks of birds fleeing before it. They take shelter under the kitchen table as gale-force winds tear at the house and shatter the windows. The sky is black, and Elsa gropes to find Loreda in the darkness. In the midst of the pounding storm, the temperature plummets.
By morning, the storm has passed, but “the world had been reshaped” (186): Everything is buried beneath dunes of black sand. Elsa announces they will leave that day, “before this goddamned land kills my children” (186). With the truck packed, Tony and Rose inform Elsa they are staying. They will try the new farming techniques the government suggests—anything to save their land. As they say goodbye, Tony gives Elsa the lucky penny. Elsa drives into town and picks up Anthony from the hospital. As they drive out of town, Elsa laments Anthony’s fragile health and how it will affect him for the rest of his life.
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
As the drought worsens, nature turns on the Martinellis without mercy, even teasing them with a brief bit of rain only to turn up the heat once again. Dust storms are such a regular occurrence, Elsa keeps a basket of survival supplies in the kitchen, including wet sponges through which to breathe. Simple survival, however, is no longer an option after Anthony nearly dies from dust inhalation. Elsa is forced to choose between the land and her children. After putting off the choice for so long, and after ignoring Rafe’s and Loreda’s pleas, she realizes that California is the only choice now. The indifference of Mother Nature is a cruelty no amount of prayer or resilience can assuage. The land doesn’t care how much you love it; mistreatment, even unintentional, will reap dire dividends.
There are slivers of optimism amid the endless tragedy, however. Loreda realizes her anger toward her mother is misplaced. Rafe left the family not because of Elsa but because of his own selfishness, a difficult truth for Loreda to accept, but she does accept it, in time. Elsa also realizes that the Martinellis have become her real family, the kind of close-knit clan she’s always wanted. They accept her and love her, and Elsa becomes the surrogate daughter they never had—Rose and Tony buried three daughters before Rafe was born. Rose and Tony’s love has become the emotional anchor that grounds Elsa both to the land and to herself, bonds that she never had with her own parents.
Elsa’s narrative arc traces a familiar path: A woman (or any character, for that matter) faced with nearly insurmountable obstacles finds within herself reserves of strength she never knew were there. Elsa, raised in relative privilege, nevertheless becomes something utterly unexpected—a survivor. Ironically, it is Elsa’s loneliness and marginalization as a young woman that equip her to deal with the emotional turmoil life has in store for her. She has come to expect harsh treatment, and so when it comes, she knows how to deal with it. She accepts it quietly, without complaint. Part of that coping strategy, though, is knowing when acceptance is necessary. While Loreda’s adolescent anger hurts Elsa deeply, assuming that emotional burden is the act not of a submissive wallflower but of a mother who understands the price of raising a family in such difficult times.
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By Kristin Hannah
