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Chapter 11: Friday
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Night, Mr. Tom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Biological Family vs. Chosen Family
Civilians in Wartime
Grief and Healing
Talent and Community
Religion
Summary
Analysis
In November, Tom helps out surrounding farms. All the evacuee children leave except Willie, Zach, the four children at the vicarage, and the King siblings on Hillbrook Farm. David Hartridge has become a pilot, which the villagers find thrilling. Though the war intensifies—an assassination attempt on Hitler and the invasion of Finland have recently occurred—it doesn’t seem to affect Little Weirwold, except that Miss Thorne has had to recast parts in the Christmas show that some evacuees were supposed to play.
On November 8, 1939, a German man named Johann Georg Elser planted a bomb at a beer hall in Munich where Hitler was supposed to give a speech; because Hitler left the event unexpectedly early, the assassination attempt failed, and Elser was later killed at the concentration camp Dachau. On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, which later allied with Nazi Germany. The relative remove that the villagers feel from these events—even as one of their own, David Hartridge, joins the British air force—suggests that they do not yet realize how the war may impact them as civilians.
Themes
By early December, Willie is reading at an appropriate level for Mrs. Hartridge’s class and is writing better, though he still needs to learn arithmetic and basic units of measurement. Though Willie can read now, he still wants Tom to tell him stories and read to him, so Tom has been narrating him the entirety of Exodus and reading The Wind in the Willows to him.
That Willie still wants Tom to read to him after he learns to read shows his deepening affection for Tom. Meanwhile, Tom’s narration of Exodus and reading of The Wind and the Willows shows his both his religious liberalism in comparison to Willie’s mother—he tells Exodus like a children’s story rather than reading it directly from the Bible—and his paternal affection for Willie.
Themes
Miss Thorne’s Christmas show is A Christmas Carol. Zach, Carrie, and George have speaking roles, Ginnie makes costumes, and Willie paints scenery. Eventually, Willie has to stand in for the usual line prompter, who has been sent to boarding school. He has soon memorized large portions of the play. One day, Carrie complains about reciting her lines to another character whose actor isn’t present. Miss Thorne asks whether the Kings are around. They aren’t, so Miss Thorne asks Willie to stand in for Christine King, telling him to imagine that he’s a “horrible old man.” Willie, remembering an old “tramp” he saw in the underground, imagines he’s that man—and acts excellently in the scene.
A Christmas Carol (1843), a novella by English novelist Charles Dickens (1812–1870), was adapted into a stage play the year after its initial publication. Unexpectedly, when called upon to act, Willie does an excellent job, which shows how the supportive and safe environment that he has found in Little Weirwold supports the expression of his talents—even as he draws his inspiration for the “horrible old man” character from an unfortunate “tramp” he saw in the London underground (i.e., the metro system).
Themes
After the children rehearse the scene several times, the other actors complain of fatigue—but Willie doesn’t feel tired. Zach tells him he’s a talented actor. Willie is confused: he just imagined he was someone else. He thought acting was about “playing the fool.” The rehearsals become energized, and the actors experiment more with their roles. Eventually, however, Robert King’s absence becomes a problem, and Miss Thorne calls a break so that she can phone Hillbrook Farm. When she leaves, the other children heap praise on Willie, and Lucy tries to hold his hand. Willie shrinks away, feeling uncomfortably singled out, and asks Zach to tap dance so that he can blend back into the crowd.
Though Willie finds acting energizing rather than tiring, he originally thought that acting involved “playing the fool” and so finds the other children’s enthusiasm for his performance embarrassing. This reaction shows that Willie still retains some of his abusive mother’s negative attitude toward the theater and is still shy and anxious, even as the safe, secure, supportive environment of Little Weirwold allows him to discover new talents.
Themes
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Miss Thorne reenters and announces that the Kings’ mother has taken them back to London because she believed they were being exploited for “unpaid labor.” The play no longer has an actor to play Scrooge. The children cry out anxiously, not knowing whether the show can go on. Then Miss Thorne asks Willie to play Scrooge. Everyone looks at him with hope. Silently, he nods. When Zach cheers, Miss Thorne hushes him and says that they need to get to work. Yet she tells Willie he doesn’t need to rush through things. Willie replies, “Everythin’ has its own time […]. That’s what Mister Tom ses.” Miss Thorne beams at him.
Scrooge, the main character in A Christmas Carol, is a miserly old man visited by four ghosts who convince him to change his ways and become more generous. Notably, the children exploited for “unpaid labor” leave Little Weirwold and so lose their opportunity to act, while Willie—who has found a supportive home in Little Weirwold—unexpectedly receives the main role. This contrast shows how children are only able to explore and develop their talents when they have a supportive environment. Meanwhile, Tom’s belief that “everythin’ has its own time” is an implicit commentary both on Willie’s slow recovery from his mother’s abuse and Tom’s slow healing from his paralyzing grief at his wife and infant son’s death.
Themes
Miss Thorne, Willie, and the other actors block the entirety of Act One. Miss Thorne is surprised she didn’t think of Willie as an actor before since she has seen how quickly he can memorize poetry—but, she reflects, people usually overlook Willie. At the rehearsal’s end, Willie is excited, feeling that some new spirit has entered the words of the play. Miss Thorne and the actors are dispersing when May Thorne bursts in and announces that Mr. Bush has been called to war from the reserves—someone else will have to teach the older students.
Because Willie is shy and easily overlooked, he might not have received the opportunity to play a lead role in the Christmas show were it not for his supportive friends, who urged him to get involved, and for the unsupportiveness of the farm family that exploited the King children for their labor. In this scene, the children learn that one of the teachers is going to war, an incident that shows the war continuing to encroach on Little Weirwold’s peaceful, rural community.
Themes
When Willie gets home, he notices that Tom looks distracted and asks whether he’s all right. Tom explains that since Mr. Bush has been called to war, he has been asked to play the organ and direct the choir for the concert. Willie asks whether Tom can play the organ. Tom explains that he did when Rachel was alive. When Willie asks who Rachel is, Tom explains that he loved her and she died of scarlatina after having his baby, who was also named William. Tom says he’ll have to practice the organ a lot. When he asks what book Willie is carrying, Willie says it’s A Christmas Carol—he’s in the play now. Tom says he'll make both their tea “extra sweet” that evening.
Unexpectedly, the encroaching war makes Tom the person best qualified to play organ for the choir. Tom has not played organ since his wife died, which implies that he gave it up as part of his larger grief-stricken retreat from society. Due to the war, however, the community now needs Tom’s talents. And due to Willie’s influence, Tom has sufficiently reentered village life and is willing to lend his talents to the community. That Tom’s infant son, who died of scarlatina (also known as scarlet fever), was named William, too, emphasizes that Willie has become a second son to Tom. Tom reacts to Willie’s bigger role in the play by giving him a reward, “extra sweet” tea, which implicitly contrasts him with Willie’s abusive mother, who thinks that the theater is sinful.
Themes
