Gender expectations: Key to the central conflict of Hobomok is the idea of Mary's identity as a woman. In the colony, she is expected to play the role of a secondary subject to the men in her life. Yet, she disrupts this expectation by taking an active part in her destiny. She pursues Hobomok, a native, and pays no mind to the roles that her family and Church expect her to fulfill. She becomes wild and powerful, like the untamed North American land, validating the fear held by male authority figures that women would be uncontrollable in the New World.[5]
Puritan repression: A key theme throughout Hobomok is the effect of Puritanism in Salem. The novel suggests that the unstable nature of early American colonies was due, in part, to social repression and disparate distribution of power. This idea is voiced by Mr. Oldham in a letter to Church elders. The letter serves as a warning toward the church that too much repression will result in rebellion. Oldham uses the metaphor that the church is “running its horses so hard, and drawing the reins so tight, that they might raise up and caste their riders into the mud.” The novel suggests that Mary's relationship with Hobomok constitutes one such rebellion.
Race relations: The character Homobok reflects Child's understanding of white-Native American relationship. Child's depiction of Hobomok, and Native Americans in general, is progressive only to the extent of the early 19th century context.[15] The story of an interracial marriage between a supposedly devoted Puritan and a Native American was truly novel at the time, even to a degree that Child felt the need to publish it anonymously under a pretense that the novel was authored by a man. However, the character Hobomok remains in the category of the "noble savage": a loyal ally to the white settlers who is considerably westernized and, in the 19th century context, civilized. Readers are constantly reminded of the racial status of Native Americans by the consistent use of word "savage" as Child refers to Hobomok and as Homobok refers to himself by third-person pronouns in conversations. However, Child does not indulge the U.S. policies toward Native Americans at the time. In fact, Child imagines a collaborative and inter-cultural relationship between the white settlers and Native Americans through the problematic but also harmonious marriage of Hobomok and Mary.[16]
