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Chapter 13: Carol Singing
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
One snowy Monday, only 10 of Mrs. Hartridge’s 15 pupils make it to school. These 10 include George, wearing a black armband because his brother Michael is “missing, believed dead,” and Willie, whom Mrs. Hartridge welcomes to the class for the first time. She gives him textbooks and school supplies, including a pen, which excites him. The pupils practice multiplication and then do an English lesson. During the latter, Carrie slips Zach a note, and Zach, reading it, whispers “Good luck” to her. When Willie, baffled by nouns, looks anxious, Mrs. Hartridge encouragingly tells him to ask if he needs help. He thinks how pretty she looks, “plumper than usual.”
A black armband is a common sign of mourning. George’s older brother Michael, the first World War II casualty from Little Weirwold, represents how the war’s violence is continuously encroaching on the peaceful village as the novel progresses. Meanwhile, Willie’s opinion that Mrs. Hartridge looks extremely pretty while “plumper than usual”—she’s pregnant—suggests that he has an innocent crush on her due to her kind, gentle, motherly qualities, which contrast with his own mother’s abusiveness.
Themes
Carrie walks up to Mrs. Hartridge and asks whether they can talk privately. Mrs. Hartridge agrees and sends the other students on their recess break. Outside on the playground, Zach tells Willie how glad he is that they’re in the same class, and Ginnie says they’ll help him if he has trouble. Then Ginnie wonders aloud why Carrie wanted to talk to Mrs. Hartridge. When it becomes clear that Zach knows why, Ginnie, George, and Willie badger him to tell. Finally, Zach divulges that Carrie is asking to take the high school entrance exam. Ginnie and George are shocked, given that Carrie is a girl, but Willie thinks it’s “fine.”
Carrie has worried that she won’t be able to attend the academic high school in town because Little Weirwold won’t support a girl’s academic talents and ambitions. George and Ginnie’s shock suggests that Carrie may be right to worry, yet Zach clearly supports Carrie’s plan and Willie thinks it’s “fine”—which in the late 1930s context of the novel likely means “good” or “excellent,” not simply “okay.” Thus, Carrie has support from at least some of her community.
Themes
When the bell rings, the students go inside. Carrie is sitting at her desk, red-faced, but the others have no opportunity during their next lessons to talk to her. At the next bell, they all rush outside, and Zach asks Carrie what happened. Carrie says Mrs. Hartridge told her she’d “make inquiries,” which means maybe—but maybe not. Then Carrie apologizes to Ginnie, saying she wanted to tell but was afraid Ginnie would stop her—she knows the rest of her family thinks she has “odd ideas,” but she’d rather be “happy and odd” than sad and conventional. When George suggests that she’s getting “snooty,” she indignantly denies it.
Carrie’s red face implies that her conversation with Mrs. Hartridge embarrassed or angered her: she may have found it difficult to make a request of her teacher, or she may have been annoyed that Mrs. Hartridge agreed to “make inquiries” but didn’t definitely agree to help Carrie get into the academic high school. When Carrie implies that her family thinks that going to high school is one of her “odd ideas,” it hints that her family won’t necessarily support her academic ambitions. George’s claim that Carrie is getting “snooty” underscores that because Carrie is a girl, the community will hesitate to support her developing her intellectual talents.
Themes
When the students return for afternoon classes, Zach asks Willie how he’s doing. Willie admits to feeling stupid, but Zach insists that he’s not. Mrs. Hartridge assigns them 10 English exercises based on a passage from Treasure Island. After the students correct each other’s work, it turns out that Willie has answered 8 of 10 exercises correctly, tying Zach and beating all other students except Carrie and another girl. Zach cries out happily and other students “gasp[].” Mrs. Hartridge, smiling, shushes Zach but praises Willie.
Treasure Island (1883), by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), is a children’s adventure novel about pirates. Willie’s surprisingly good showing in the English exercises, which causes the other students to “gasp[],” emphasizes how far he has come academically in a short time with help from a supportive community.
Themes
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After their English exercises, the class switches to painting. Mrs. Hartridge says they should draw a rainy scene. She tells Willie he’ll do well and smiles at him. He swears to himself that one day he’ll draw her “real good.” After a while, Mrs. Hartridge checks her students’ work—and is shocked at the quality of Willie’s art, though she’d already heard he was talented. She asks whether she can hang it on the wall once it’s dry. After art, Mrs. Hartridge reads the class a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale and dismisses them. After playing a little with Carrie, Ginnie, and George—who leaves early with a headache—Willie and Zach walk home together, chatting a great deal.
When Willie promises himself to draw pretty Mrs. Hartridge “real good,” it again suggests that he has an innocent crush on her due to her kind, supportive, motherly presence—so different from that of his own abusive mother. Mrs. Hartridge’s request to hang Willie’s art on the classroom wall emphasizes how supportive of Willie’s various talents—and especially his art—the Little Weirwold community continues to be.
Themes
One morning in March, Willie sees through his window that spring is coming. When he goes downstairs, Tom notices his buoyant mood and tells him to take Sammy for a run. Willie and the dog sprint exuberantly together. Later, after breakfast, Willie walks to school with Zach. At school, Carrie now sits in the back row with the 13-year-old pupils, though she’s only 10. Mrs. Hartridge has told Carrie’s parents that Carrie is intelligent enough for the high school entrance exam. At first, Carrie’s mother resisted the idea, but Carrie’s father—who “secretly” approves of his daughter’s initiative—helped Mrs. Hartridge assuage her worries. Carrie has started spending many of her evening hours studying for the exam.
Whereas Willie’s mother wanted him to be “invisible,” Tom encourages Willie to indulge in his high spirits—yet another small incident that illustrates how much better a parent for Willie Tom is than Willie’s mother has been. Meanwhile, Carrie has won support from Mrs. Hartridge and her father for her taking the high school entrance exam. That Carrie’s mother disapproves of the idea and her father approves only “secretly” underscores that in 1930s rural England, girls did not necessarily receive community support for their intellectual pursuits.
Themes
Willie loves Mrs. Hartridge’s class—listening to Mrs. Hartridge’s gentle voice, watching her belly expand. Yet this day he longs to finish school. After school, he, Zach, George, Carrie, and Ginnie convene at Zach’s, where they plan to explore Spooky Cott that Saturday. Then they go to a village hall meeting, where Miss Thorne announces the next play she will direct: Toad of Toad Hall. Willie sings as he walks home, feeling energized. Yet at home, he finds Tom holding a letter. Tom announces that Willie’s mother is sick and wants Willie to come visit her.
This passage makes explicit that Willie likes observing gentle Mrs. Hartridge’s pregnancy, which emphasizes yet again that his innocent crush on her derives from his perception of her as a good, kind mother unlike his own. Toad of Toad Hall (1929) is A.A. Milne’s (1882 – 1956) play adaptation of the previously mentioned children’s book The Wind in the Willows (1908). The childish innocence of the play makes clear the harmlessness and pleasure of theater, contra Willie’s mother’s claims that it is sinful. As such, the sudden juxtaposition of the play with the summons from Willie’s mother reminds the reader of her unreasonable beliefs and abusiveness, thereby foreshadowing that Willie’s visit to her will go badly.
Themes
