Why does True Son contemplate suicide in The Light in the Forest?What does the old sycamore at the forks of the Muskingum symbolize?

True Son is determined not to be taken back to live among
the white men, but his father is unyielding, and says that he must go. When he learns
that he must leave his home the next day for Pennsylvania, he is filled with despair,
and cannot imagine living among the people he so despises. He
thinks,

"Never
would he go to this enemy land. How could he exist among a race of aliens with such
slouching ways and undignified speech! How could he live and breathe and not be an
Indian!"

Feeling that he has
no way out, True Son remembers his father's friend, Make Daylight, who had been forsaken
by his squaw, and had eaten the root of the May apple so as not to have to live with his
disgrace. Since he had been a brave warrior, the tribe had not condemned Make Daylight
for his action, and True Son feels that they would act in the same way towards him. True
Son is determined not to be taken to Pennsylvania to live among the white man. To him,
death is a far better and more honorable alternative.

The
ancient sycamore that stands at the forks of the Muskigum is symbolic of the parting of
trails that True Son must face. The tree has "one dead limb pointing to the gloomy trace
to Pennsylvania," and, on the far side, "a live branch indicat(ing) the path running
bright and free toward home." It is significant that the dead limb points toward the
land of the white man, where True Son dreads to go, while the live branch points the way
home, where True Son might live in happiness and freedom (Chapter
3).