My Heart Is a Chainsaw

Indian Lake symbolizes history, and who is included and excluded from the story of a place. The town of Proofrock is built on the shores of the lake and the new development of Terra Nova is being constructed on the other shore. While the lake connects these places, allowing for the Founders to travel back and forth between their new homes and the small town, it also separates them, indicating that the Founders are not yet integrated into the town’s history. Inclusion in community is consistently compared to the idea of burial. One of the Founders jokes that his definition of home is where his beloved pet dog is buried. Similarly, Jade observes that “Indian Lake is big, and dark, and quiet, and it’s been swallowing bodies since forever” (350). The story of Ezekiel the preacher and the community of Henderson-Golding, AKA Drown Town, is particularly relevant to the symbolic meaning of Indian Lake. Jade reports that “when Henderson-Golding was being flooded with what would become Indian Lake, he’d locked his congregation into his one-room church with him, and they sang until the waters swamped the town, and are maybe, Jade said in her conclusion, still singing, awaiting the day they can rise from the depths to punish the town that replaced Henderson-Golding” (89). This communal act of self-burial within the lake represents how the history of the landscape is still an active force upon the contemporary town, preserved by the waters of the lake and perhaps able to eventually return.

Stacey Graves, the Lake Witch, cannot go beneath the surface of Indian Lake because of her exclusion from the local community. Indian Lake acts as a protective force for Proofrock, allowing Hardy and Jade to escape from Stacey’s attacks by hiding under the water. However, Jade eventually realizes that Stacey’s exclusion from the town’s history due to her racial and cultural heritage is one of the reasons why she is attacking its residents. She recognizes the reason why Stacey walks on top of the water: “[…] a little girl not slowed down by having to wade or swim—she couldn’t if she wanted to, because this Christian burial ground won’t take her Indian self, won’t let her step through” (373). Because the lake is the location where Ezekiel buried his congregation, Stacey is unable to go under and become a part of history, forcing her to instead return and torment the living.

The end of the novel demonstrates that Indian Lake symbolizes both the protective and destructive force of history. Sheriff Hardy recounts that a local dam operator once attempted to flood the entire town because he was grieving the loss of his daughter. Jade is also forced to open the dam and flood the town to prevent it from being destroyed by a forest fire. She wonders, “how long will the lake take to rise, though? Will it be fast enough? What brick by the bank will the waters reach over in Proofrock? It’ll be soon enough, Jade decides. And: it’ll be all the bricks” (396). The lake serves as both a defender and a threat, just as Jade does when she takes on the role of both slasher and final girl. Because the lake is the repository for local history, the place where dead community members are buried, Jones suggests that knowing history can both save and threaten a place. The stories that Jade uncovers about her town expose its worst qualities, yet they also allow for peace and resolution when Stacey is finally able to sink beneath the waters and rejoin her mother.