Loss/Grief
Much of the story revolves around the Bigtree girls' quest to find the ghost of their mother as well as to save their dying theme park, and to a larger extent, their family’s way of life. The story thusly, becomes a very personal account of how the Bigtree family copes, or at least tries, with death and loss. The family copes with loss, both of the clan matriarch and the park’s business by taking varied but extreme courses of action: the girls turn to necromancy--literally trying to reach out to their mother’s soul from the land of the living. The Chief stubbornly--foolishly one might argue, decides to hang on to the park and the ‘gator wrestling tradition, while Kiwi, eldest male son of the Chief, decides that he must leave the confines of their insular life and learn from their “enemies” to survive and thrive.
Obsession with the Past
Both Osceola and The Chief are so preoccupied with the past: Osceola immerses herself deep into the occult, frantically trying to get in touch with her departed mother’s soul and the Chief is obsessed over trying to save their theme park and by extension their family’s traditions. Neither character seems to want to press forward into the inevitable future and this is really where all the conflict stems from--an unhealthy desire to cling to the past despite the future already at their doorstep.
Change/Coping with Change
The opening of the World of Darkness theme park brings with it a whole host of changes that the Bigtree clan is all but powerless to stop. Each member of the Bigtree clan copes with these changes in their own unique ways and the novel is also partly a chronicle of the clan’s clumsy attempts at keeping in pace with the future, or in some cases, stagnating or even going backward a couple of steps. Kiwi and The Chief manage to keep up with the changes by going as far away from their comfort zones as possible, both of them sacrificing considerable amounts of their personal dignity in the process.
Coming of Age
Swamplandia! is a coming of age story of the Bigtree children, each of them forced into maturity in order to adapt to new surroundings by circumstances bigger than themselves. Kiwi realizes that their way of life is all but over and decides that for his family to survive they must adapt to the norms of mainstream society. He begins by getting a janitorial job at the rival park in order to fill in the economic gap/parental gap created by The World of Darkness and, later on, Chief Bigtree’s sudden abandonment of his family. Osceola’s matures as a result of having been stranded in the depths of the swamp and it is here where she discards her unhealthy fascination with the dead. Ava’s development is most tragic though as it is the result of having been largely abandoned by her older family members as they pursue their individual agendas and her violation at the hands of the enigmatic “Bird Man.”
Isolation
Isolation is a prevalent theme in the novel with all of the characters experiencing isolation either literally or figuratively. The Bigtree clan resides in an area that is well away from the rest of Florida deep in the Everglades. This seclusion allows the family to develop its own traditions and culture, a matter that fosters deep family ties but also keeps them from integrating with the rest of mainstream US society, as they are perceived as odd and too rural. Osceola’s preoccupation with the dead isolates her from the rest of her family, preferring to keep company with the restless dead than the living. Ava’s youth--despite the obvious wisdom she displays--prevents her from being taken seriously by the older members of her family, keeping her, at least in a manner of speaking, isolated from the rest of them.
