# Chapter XXI explained — Cimarron

> Chapter companion for Cimarron by Edna Ferber.

## What happens

The chapter describes the transformative oil boom in Oklahoma, focusing on the sudden wealth of the Osage Indians and the societal changes it brings. Young Cim returns home and is swept into the oil industry, while Yancey Cravat remains a detached observer, drinking heavily and occasionally writing fiery editorials. Sabra Cravat runs the Oklahoma Wigwam, documenting the boom and maintaining the paper's integrity. The chapter also recounts the death of Dixie Lee, who adopted a child but had it taken away by the 'good women' of Osage, leading to her death from a broken heart.

## Themes in this chapter

### Transformation and Progress

The oil boom transforms Osage from a barren reservation to a center of wealth, with Indians leaping from the Neolithic Age to Broadway in one year.

### Myth vs. Reality

The romanticized pioneer spirit clashes with the gritty reality of oil greed, as Yancey despises the 'filthy muck' and the scramble for wealth.

### Social Class and Morality

The 'good women' of Osage judge Dixie Lee for adopting a child, leading to her death, highlighting moral hypocrisy and class divisions.

### Native American Dispossession

The Osage are swept off their reservation for oil, then given head rights and new homes, but their culture is disrupted by sudden wealth.

## Character check-ins

### Sabra Cravat

Runs the Oklahoma Wigwam, devotes a page to Osage news, and maintains the paper's integrity despite the oil boom.

### Yancey Cravat

Returns sporadically, writes barbed editorials, champions the Indians, and learns of Dixie Lee's death; his drinking and age show.

### Cim Cravat

Comes home from Colorado for summer vacation, gets caught up in the oil flood, and never returns to school.

### Dixie Lee

Strikes oil, retires rich, adopts a baby girl, but the child is taken away by local women; dies six months later of a broken heart.

### Pat Leary

Once a section hand, now rich through oil holdings; his Indian wife Crook Nose is considered picturesque by Eastern operators.

### Tracy Wyatt

Mentioned as one of the women who took Dixie Lee's child away by law.

### Doc Nisbett

Mentioned as part of the group of women who took Dixie Lee's child away.

## Key lines

> The Osage Indians, a little more than two thousand in number, who but yesterday were a ragged, half-fed, and listless band, squatting wretchedly on the Reservation allotted them, waiting until time, sickness, and misery should blot them forever from the land, were now, by a miracle of nature, the richest nation in the world.

The Osage, once impoverished and neglected on their reservation, suddenly became the wealthiest people globally due to an oil discovery.

_Highlights the dramatic reversal of fortune for the Osage._

> Dixie Lee, for years one of the most prominent citizens of Osage and a pioneer in the early days of Oklahoma, having made the Run in ’89, one of the few women who had the courage to enter that historic and terrible race, is dead. She was murdered by the good women of Osage.

Yancey's obituary for Dixie Lee states she died because the respectable women of Osage took away her adopted child, effectively killing her.

_Shows Yancey's blunt condemnation of societal hypocrisy._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/cimarron_se/chapters/xxi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/cimarron_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/cimarron_se/chapters