48 pages • 1 hour read
Tana FrenchThe Hunter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Loyalty
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of domestic abuse.
French highlights the importance of loyalty through familial and communal connections. Cal and Trey’s relationship emphasizes how loyalty and trust can dissolve the need for vengeance and violence. Similarly, Trey sees the importance of familial relationships when she realizes that Sheila could go to prison for protecting her from Rushborough. Despite the threat of violence from the Ardnakelty men and Rushborough, Cal shows Trey that loyalty to the people she loves is more important than greed or revenge.
Johnny’s reappearance at the start of the novel tests the loyalty between Cal and Trey. At first, Trey falls under Johnny’s manipulation. However, Johnny’s actions put Trey and her family in danger, and she realizes that he makes empty promises and is only loyal to his self-interest. Cal, in contrast, puts aside his desire to guide and protect Trey by allowing her to make her own decisions, hoping that she will eventually see that her plan for revenge will not give her happiness. Although it takes Lena’s intervention to show Trey how her desire for revenge could hurt Cal, Trey immediately abandons her plan when she realizes the impact of her actions. Trey’s abrupt shift once she learns about Cal’s endangerment shows the power of loyalty that Cal and Trey have built together over the years. This relationship means more to Trey than her blood relationship with Johnny, and she chooses to put Cal first, even if it means abandoning her hope for revenge.
Another aspect of loyalty that French emphasizes is the familial loyalty between Trey and Sheila. This dynamic contrasts the negative parent-child relationship between Trey and her father. Even though Trey expresses frustration with Sheila at several points in the novel for not leaving Johnny, Trey realizes that she may have been hasty in criticizing her mother’s lack of action after Sheila’s confession. Sheila’s confession shows Trey that she would do anything to protect her family, so Trey repays the action by burning the evidence that could implicate Sheila. Sheila tells Trey that she never thought of murdering Johnny because of the vows that she made to him when they married, which instilled in her a warped sense of loyalty that kept her by Johnny’s side despite years of domestic violence. However, Sheila does not have the same connection with Rushborough, which is why she decides to murder him to protect Trey. For Sheila, loyalty to her family is the most important aspect of her life, and she knows that killing Rushborough will allow Trey to focus on her future.
The Consequences of Past Actions
The Hunter explores the consequences of past actions through Johnny’s background and the lasting effects of Brendan’s murder. Trey feels haunted by not knowing who killed Brendan, so she devises a plan to exact revenge on Ardnakelty. Through the narrative, Trey learns to release the pain of the past because it will damage her hopes for a healthy, positive future.
When Johnny arrives in Ardnakelty, no one realizes that he brings the consequences of his decisions with him. Once Trey realizes that Rushborough orchestrates everything Johnny does, she realizes that her family and Ardnakelty must pay the price for Johnny’s behavior in London. Despite his reputation as a swindler, the Ardnakelty men decide to forget about his past for the promise of gold. However, Trey does not have the privilege of forgetting his actions because they involved physical abuse in the home. She and her family suffered most at his hand, and the consequence of this is that she seeks to ruin his schemes and harm the men of Ardnakelty at his expense. Even though Johnny wants to pretend like nothing ever happened, Trey knows that the past cannot be erased.
Although Trey promises to forget about Brendan’s murder, she cannot let go of her desire for revenge. Before she met Cal, Brendan was the closest person to Trey, and she grieves for him by searching the mountain for a sign of his unmarked grave. Trey’s grief manifests in anger, though, which leads to her plan to punish the Ardnakelty men for their crimes. Trey wants these men to feel the consequences of past actions and how the weight of Brendan’s murder is still real to Trey. Trey hates that the men can forget about their crimes because they did not know Brendan, while Trey must live with the absence of her brother every day. Cal and Lena eventually teach Trey that she must let go of her desire for revenge. Trey does not understand this until she burns the shed and the mountain to erase the evidence of Sheila’s crime. Once Trey sees the physical burning of the mountain, she realizes that she will never find Brendan’s grave. The cleansing nature of the fire allows Trey to heal from the grief of Brendan’s death, as she finally understands that she must release the past to focus on the future.
The Pursuit of Greed
Johnny and Rushborough’s scam on Ardnakelty reveals the complexities of greed. Even though the Ardnakelty men are skeptical of Johnny’s intentions in the town, Johnny manipulates them by allowing them to dream about what life would be like if they became wealthy. Once the men taste the possibility of wealth, their greed consumes them, allowing Johnny and Rushborough to take advantage of them.
Johnny develops the scam on Ardnakelty because he understands the way that they think and knows that he can control them with the promise of wealth. Since Ardnakelty has treated the Reddy family badly their whole lives, Johnny pitches the idea of swindling Ardnakelty to Rushborough as a form of retribution. Johnny understands that the men will be difficult to trick; however, he knows firsthand how greed manipulates and affects people. His money problems that drive the plot are the result of his selfishness: He left home to seek financial gain but only ended up in debt. Johhny gives Rushborough the gold ring that he found in a pawn shop to verify Rushborough’s story. Even though it is obvious that the gold ring could have come from anywhere, the Ardnakelty men want to believe in the legend of the gold because it could change their lives. After the presentation of the ring and Trey’s fake discovery of gold in the mountain, the Ardnakelty men’s greed over their possession of the land makes it impossible for them to see through Johnny’s plan. The men’s greed and selfish desires therefore oblivious to common sense and the reality of their situation.
Another example of the problems with the pursuit of greed lies in how greed changes people’s behavior. Cal, Lena, Sheila, and Trey are the main characters who avoid this consequence because they don’t seek wealth at others’ expense. Rushborough’s desire for money, along with his arrogance, leads to his downfall because he does not believe that anyone would try to swindle him. His critical thinking skills are exposed as dull when he willingly walks into the trap that Sheila sets for him, too consumed by his desire for money. Earlier in the novel, Trey sees through the change in Ardnakelty’s behavior because all the people who have looked down on Trey her whole life start to treat her with respect. She does not let herself get pulled into this lie because she remembers how people treated her before. Johnny claims that his desire for wealth is driven by the urge to buy a new house and clothes for the children, but she rightfully doesn’t trust him. Because she’s not motivated by greed, she’s able to be more discerning in her behavior, though her perspective becomes clouded by a desire for revenge. Even if daydreams of financial stability are well-intentioned, Trey learns from Cal the importance of focusing on the present and what she can achieve in the moment, rather than the empty promises for a future that may never come.
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