The author’s tone of disgust for Old Man Fat’s lifestyle shows that in the Navajo tradition, a person’s identity is defined by his personal connection to the earth. When Chee was at Old Man Fat’s trading post to try and get his daughter back for the first time, he described the trading post on “drab, treeless” land. This description of Old Man Fat’s land shows that Chee thinks poorly about Old Man Fat’s treatment of his land, compared to his own, which is well-kept and beautiful. Old Man Fat’s personality is shown through the treatment of his own land because his land is dead and looked down upon, like him from the Navajo. When Chee first saw Old Man Fat to try and retrieve his daughter, he thinks of a phrase his mother always said, “When you
