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Chapter 15. Beth: The Cop
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Catching Teller Crow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Grief
Abuse of Power, Racism, and the Law
Storytelling and Truth
Time
Female Friendship
Summary
Analysis
As Michael drives to the hospital, Beth asks whether he believes that Catching can shed light on Derek’s murder. Rather than answer, Michael confronts Beth with his suspicion that Catching can hear her. When Beth admits it, Michael asks why she kept it a secret. She says that she didn’t want to tell him because Catching believes that Beth should “move on.” Michael, surprised, asks whether there is a place she could go. After some delay, she admits that there’s a place full of colors and her mom is there—but she hurries to say that she plans to stay with Michael.
Michael hasn’t been intentionally using his grief to prevent Beth from moving on to the afterlife: he assumed she was haunting him because she had no other choice. Beth’s hesitation before telling him about the afterlife of bright colors (symbolizing positive emotion), where her mom is waiting for her suggests that she expects Michael will be upset with her for staying frozen in the physical world solely for his benefit.
Themes
Michael asks whether Beth wouldn’t prefer to go to a better place with her mom. When Beth can’t make herself lie, Michael realizes that Beth is delaying because of him and insists that he’ll be fine. Beth explodes, saying that he’s obviously not fine. When he makes a pained face, she says she’s going to talk to Catching about the murders. He tries to talk to her more about the other place, but she phases through the car and into the hospital. In Catching’s room, she blurts that her dad knows they can talk and that she already discussed moving on with him, so Catching doesn’t need to say anything about it.
While readers may have blamed Michael for his obsessive grief, which has made Beth feel obligated to stay with him, this scene makes clear that Michael wants what’s best for Beth and would never consciously keep her from growing, changing, and moving on. Beth feels obligated to Michael because she recognizes how much pain he's in—something he can’t fully control. This dynamic illustrates how grief and trauma can negatively impact not only the people directly suffering from them but the people around them as well.
Themes
Michael enters Catching’s hospital room and insists that he and Beth need to talk. Beth is denying it when Catching tells them both that they need to talk about something else. Beth looks at Catching closely and notices she seems more defined and colorful somehow. Catching tells them she’s going to tell them the rest of her story. She says that stories helped her survive “the beneath-place,” but she’s not sure what hers will do to Beth and Michael.
The greater intensity of Catching’s colors, which symbolize positive emotions and psychological health, suggests that telling the story of her captivity and abuse to Michael and Beth is helping her. Immediately afterward, she suggests that stories can be tools for survival in traumatic contexts such as “the beneath-place.” This claim adds to the significance that the novel places on stories, which have already been represented as useful heuristics for discovering and communicating the truth.
Themes
