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Chapter 33
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Eleanor and Park, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Adolescence and Shame
Love and Intimacy
Poverty and Class
Family and Abuse
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Eleanor arrives at Park’s house, and his whole family greets her warmly. She shoves a present into Park’s arms, and he opens it—it is a copy of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Eleanor secretly hopes Park won’t open the book up just yet—she has written a secret message inside for him. Park excitedly pulls Eleanor up to his room and hands her two presents. One, he says, is a bottle of perfume from Mindy—the other is from him. Eleanor opens Park’s present and finds a beautiful silver necklace inside, with a small pendant in the shape of a pansy. Park tells Eleanor he’ll understand if she can’t take the present home—but Eleanor wants it.
Though Christmas at Eleanor’s house turned out to be a veritable disaster, she is welcomed into Park’s house and showered with gifts. Eleanor is happy to be surrounded by love and warmth, but at the same time, all the abundance at Park’s house is just a reminder of how lacking things are at her own.
Themes
The narrative switches to Park’s point of view. As Eleanor opens his present, he is nervous and regrets getting her something “so public.” As soon as Eleanor opens the gift, though, she tells Park she loves it, and asks him to fasten it around her neck. Park does so, full of desire the whole time.
Eleanor and Park both know it’s risky for Eleanor to do anything that might clue her family—especially Richie—into the truth about their relationship, but Eleanor cannot resist having a tangible token of Park’s love to help her through her tough times.
Themes
The narrative switches to Eleanor’s point of view. She and Park sit in Park’s family’s kitchen, playing cards. When Park and Mindy ask Eleanor how her Christmas was, she gives them generic answers about the dinner they ate and the movies they watched. Eleanor clutches her necklace tight.
The necklace is already functioning as a touchstone for Eleanor—a way of connecting to Park, and to the person she is when she’s around him, even when she’s trapped in the dangerous world of her home.
Themes
Eleanor spends most of the rest of her Christmas vacation at Park’s house. Eleanor’s mother thinks she is at Tina’s the whole time, and worries that Eleanor is overstaying her welcome. Sabrina tells Eleanor to invite Tina over to their house—but both Eleanor and Sabrina know something like that could never happen. Eleanor misses the days when her parents were still married and their house was always full of friends and guests.
Eleanor’s mother struggles to maintain the charade that things are normal within her own mind, even though it’s clear to Eleanor that their home life has grown so warped that the idea of guests is an impossibility.
Themes
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Eleanor always tries to leave Park’s house before dinner, so as not to be in imposition—and also because she wants to beat Richie home so that she can take a bath in peace. As school starts back up, Eleanor finds herself frenzied as she tries to balance her time at Park’s house with her own routine at home—and finds that she still has to endure teasing and bullying from Tina and her crew almost each day.
The pressures of Eleanor’s difficult life are increasing and piling up. Even though her existence has become a balancing act, it’s worth it to her to be with Park and to be able to escape her home for a while each day.
Themes
The narrative switches to Park’s point of view. As school starts back up, he has to fend off questions from Cal about his relationship with Eleanor. Cal wants to know if Park is “getting it” from her, but Park only retorts that Cal’s dirty mind and lewd questions are the very reason he didn’t tell him about the relationship in the first place.
This passage shows how Park’s friends just don’t understand the depth or seriousness of his relationship with Eleanor. It also suggests that Cal is a suspect in the case of who’s been writing lewd notes on Eleanor’s textbooks.
Themes
