Content warning: This section of the guide discusses domestic violence and sexual assault.

One key power struggle negotiated by Omishto in the novel is between Western academic principles and tribal knowledge. Initially, Omishto seeks to empower herself by being “good” at Western educational processes and ways of thinking. She rejects superstitions and magical occurrences, denies Ama’s beliefs in cosmic balance, and has disconnected from her subconscious so much that she has stopped dreaming. Her grades give her status amongst her peers, as she is seen as a success story for assimilation: a “new and shining model for the Indian kids who always seemed indifferent to their school” (108).

Witnessing Ama’s choice to act according to her beliefs emboldens Omishto to disrupt the colonialist doctrines that privilege Western ways of knowing. The irony of her success at school is that she uses her critical thinking skills to turn the power dynamic on its head. She applies her knowledge of geography to her mother’s Christian doctrine, calculating the impossibility of the existence of heaven and hell as physical realms on earth. When her classmates harass her for her part in the panther killing, she criticizes the hypocrisy of their judgment, rationalizing that they only care for the idea of the panther but not the animal itself.