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Part 1: Pages 1-25
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Carrie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puberty, Adolescence, and Coming of Age
Female Sexuality and Shame
Conformity vs. Ostracization
Cycles of Abuse
Sin vs. Atonement
Summary
Analysis
Carrie walks home, cramping from her period. As she walks, she fantasizes about bashing in the heads of her tormentors. She thinks of her strict religious upbringing and how it has isolated her from her peers; she can still remember the first time she got on her knees to pray at school, and she has never done so again due to the ridicule it caused. However, despite Carrie’s attempts to fit in at school, she has always been an outcast; even her time at a Christian youth camp ended with her being bullied. As she gets closer, a little neighbor boy on a bicycle taunts her. Carrie glowers at him, and he suddenly falls off of his bike and begins to cry. She attempts to break a neighbor’s window but fails. Still, she thinks of Mr. Morton’s ashtray and feels reassured.
After the novel’s introduction, the narrative shifts to Carrie’s perspective, showing how her meek demeanor contrasts with her real personality, which is bitter and vengeful due to all the abuse she’s suffered. Her causing a little boy to fall off of his bike and her attempt to break a neighbor’s window also show that her telekinetic abilities are not simply involuntary reactions to psychological stress, but a skill that she can deliberately activate and use to her advantage. This reveals her to be a person with significantly more agency and willpower than those surrounding her believe.
Themes
Carrie wonders if her mother remembers “the day of the stones,” which happened when Carrie was very young. In an Esquire article, the Whites’ former neighbor Estelle Horan recounts the day and her experience with the Whites. She remembers Carrie’s father, Ralph White, as a mean man who always carried a Bible and a 0.38 revolver. At the time, Estelle’s mother and Margaret have been feuding over Estelle wearing her bathing suit in the Horans’ backyard where the Whites can see her. Out of spite, Estelle’s mother buys her a skimpy white bikini and tells her to wear it outside. Estelle does so, although she is scared of Margaret White—especially since she does not know if she still has Ralph’s 0.38.
The details about Carrie’s late father Ralph reveal more about the White family: namely, that while Margaret is abusive to Carrie, it is highly likely that Ralph was abusive to her in turn, creating a cycle of violence within the family. Margaret’s anger over Estelle wearing a bathing suit also serves as another example of how fiercely conservative Margaret is about women’s bodies, to the point that she even views a teenage girl wearing swimwear in her own backyard as provocative.
Themes
Despite Estelle’s anxiety, nothing initially happens, and Estelle falls asleep in the backyard. When she wakes up, three-year-old Carrie is standing over her. Estelle finds her to be a very cute girl, but she is struck by how long her dress is for summer. Carrie points to Estelle’s breast, which has slipped out of Estelle’s top, and asks what it is. Estelle tells her. Carrie says she wishes she had breasts, and Estelle tells her that she will someday. However, Carrie says that she won’t because breasts—or “dirtypillows,” as she calls them—don’t grow on good girls. Estelle points out that Margaret has breasts, but Carrie mumbles that Margaret has them because she was bad when she was younger. Just then, Margaret comes out and screams Carrie’s name loudly.
Estelle’s interaction with the toddler Carrie reveals how, despite the latter’s young age, she has internalized Margaret’s fundamentalist teachings. Her bizarrely calling breasts “dirtypillows” shows that Margaret has taught her to view normal developments of the body as evidence of sin. Even so, Carrie’s desire to grow breasts herself shows that, despite Margaret’s teachings, she already has a desire to grow up to be like other girls, even if it makes her “impure.”
Themes
Estelle leaps up and chastises Margaret for yelling at Carrie, but Margaret just screams wordlessly as a response. Carrie goes pale and starts walking back to the house, giving one miserable look back to Estelle as she does so. Estelle’s mother comes out to investigate the commotion and Margaret, while still screaming, begins to scratch herself. She brings Carrie inside, and Estelle and her mother can hear commotion, including Margaret telling Carrie to get into a closet. As they listen, Estelle and mother drink tea silently in the kitchen, and Estelle thinks of a time she saw a crying little girl being led by a drunk man in New York.
While the novel up to this point has implied that Carrie’s home life is abusive, the terrible scene that Estelle witnesses confirms it in stark detail. Although Carrie’s curiosity around Estelle’s body is normal for a young child, Margaret views it as such a terrible transgression that she self-harms and throws Carrie in a closet. Just as troubling is Estelle and her mother’s inaction at the abuse. Estelle is aware of her own complicity, as shown by her remembering a girl being victimized in New York that she was not able to help.
Themes
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Suddenly, Estelle and her mother hear a large thump from outside. Estelle goes to the window and sees giant globes of ice falling onto the White house. After a few minutes, it stops, after which Margaret begins to scream and slam doors. As more neighbors come out to investigate, crashing sounds come from within the house, and then a very large kitchen table breaks through a side window. For five minutes after this, there’s silence—then stones begin to rain from the sky, once again only falling on the Whites’ property. They damage the roof and leave craters in the yard. Afterwards, there’s little local coverage of it, and everyone tries to forget it, even though there were many witnesses. In the present, Estelle says that they can no longer ignore it—as what happened that day has now spread to all of Chamberlain.
While most of Carrie’s telekinetic acts so far have been minor, her outburst at age three shows just how dramatic and destructive her abilities can get. Here, Carrie isn’t just pushing an ashtray off of a desk or breaking a lightbulb, she’s generating a bizarre natural phenomenon in response to her mother’s abuse. This also shows how Carrie’s telekinetic abilities get more dangerous when she’s in truly severe psychological turmoil—which, given her struggles in the present day, bodes poorly for everyone.
Themes
Back in the present, Carrie arrives home to an empty house; Margaret is at work. She looks at the various religious paraphernalia on the walls, the largest of which is a four-feet-tall crucifix that frequently haunts her dreams. She goes to the bathroom, where she retrieves a pad; looking at it, she recalls the time she used one of these to blot her lipstick, and she realizes with anger that it was the other girls, not her mother, who tried to tell her about menstruation. She undresses, thinking about how she could be pretty if she lost weight and changed her clothes. Taking off her bra, she looks at her breasts and feels a moment of sexual desire. She changes her pad, thinking of how her mother is the only “good one”—and Carrie hates her. Afterwards, Carrie looks at her reflection and is repulsed by it. The mirror breaks.
Carrie’s moment of introspection in her empty house highlights the complexities of her character. Although she is alienated from her peers, she has similar worries to them regarding her weight and appearance, showing how, in some ways, she is a normal teenage girl. However, her conflict about her own sexuality as well as her contradicting feelings about her mother show how the abuse she suffers have affected her psyche—including her feelings about her own appearance, as signified by her breaking the bathroom mirror.
Themes
