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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
After Will leaves, Tom feels as he did after Rachel died—though he reminds himself that Will isn’t dead. The Nazis have invaded Norway and Denmark, and the British are responding, but the war doesn’t seem to affect Little Weirwold. For four weeks, Tom waits for Will to respond to his letters but receives nothing. One night, Tom has a terrible dream that he’s locked in a dark, cramped space. In the dream, Will is yelling for help. He wakes from the dream around 3 a.m. and decides to walk to his fire-watch shift early.
Tom’s grief over Will’s departure reminds him of his grief over Rachel’s death. This surprising comparison shows how Tom has come to love Will like a family member. It also shows how caring for Will has helped heal Tom’s grief—such that Will’s departure tears open Tom’s emotional wounds again. Tom’s dream that Will is calling for help comes immediately after Mrs. Beech has locked Will in a closet and Will has whispered for Tom—suggesting that Tom and Will’s emotional bond has attuned Tom to the danger Will might be in while visiting his abusive mother.
Themes
As Tom walks home from his fire-watch shift around dawn, he encounters May Thorne, who tells him he has no mail but mentions anxiously that a telegram has arrived for Mrs. Hartridge. Tom is startled: the last telegram to Little Weirwold announced Michael Fletcher’s death. May says that she’s worried about delivering the telegram, given Mrs. Hartridge’s advanced pregnancy. Tom offers to ask Mrs. Fletcher to visit Mrs. Hartridge. May thanks him. Tom walks to the Fletchers’. He finds Mrs. Fletcher and tells her about the telegram. When she asks whether it’s David, Tom admits he doesn’t know but thought Mrs. Fletcher could help. As Mrs. Fletcher hurries to get her coat, Tom abruptly announces he’s going to take the train to London that day.
David Hartridge is Mrs. Hartridge’s husband. Tom and Mrs. Fletcher are worried that the telegram for Mrs. Hartridge is a notice of her husband’s death in the war. This reasonable worry shows how heavily the war has affected the formerly peaceful Little Weirwold. The narrator doesn’t say why the possible news of David Hartridge’s death compels Tom to go looking for Will in London, but readers can infer that he is afraid of losing his new, chosen son the way that Mrs. Fletcher lost her son to the war and Mrs. Hartridge may have lost her husband.
Themes
Tom brings Sammy with him to London. On the platform, he finds ticket men to direct him to Will’s address. On the bus to Will’s neighborhood, Deptford, the conductress asks Tom whether he’s visiting his grandson. He nods because the truth is hard to explain. By the time he reaches Will’s poor, rundown neighborhood, it’s midnight, and air raid sirens are going off. A warden finds Tom and escorts him to a shelter. When the warden asks why Tom is in London, Tom explains that he’s looking for an evacuee who stayed with him. The warden, shocked, says that Tom should give up—evacuees run away all the time.
The difficulty Tom would have explaining his and Will’s relationship to the bus conductress suggests that society still does not have a sufficiently robust vocabulary for discussing chosen family (like Tom and Will) as opposed to biological or legal family. The Deptford warden’s shock that Tom has come looking for an evacuee and his assumption that Tom’s evacuee ran away hint that many evacuees found their temporary households less supportive than Will found Tom’s.
Themes
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Tom explains that his evacuee lived with him for six months before his mother summoned him home for a visit a month ago and that he just wants to make sure the boy is all right. The warden says that though he’s heard nasty stories about country folk, Tom seems like a good person, and he volunteers to help find Tom’s evacuee. When Tom hands him Will’s address, the warden recognizes it and asks whether Tom is looking for “Willie Beech.” Tom excitedly asks whether the warden has seen him. The warden says he hasn’t seen him since September, but Mrs. Beech is a religious zealot who thinks she’s better than her neighbors.
The nasty stories that the warden has heard about country folk further hint that many rural homes that took in evacuees were less kind to the displaced London children than Tom was to Will. The warden’s claim that Mrs. Beech is a religious zealot who looks down on her neighbors suggests that Mrs. Beech did her abuse of Will by keeping him away from the neighbors on the pretext of believing their family was too good for their surroundings.
Themes
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The warden summons Mrs. Beech’s neighbor, a large lisping woman named Glad, and asks her whether she’s seen Mrs. Beech or Will. Glad says no, though she has heard “bumps and whimpers” from the Beeches’ place. She offers to take Tom there. Then, suddenly, she remembers that Mrs. Beech has taken a vacation to the coast. Tom says he wants to see the place anyway. After two hours, the air raid alarm stops. Glad and the warden walk Tom to the Beeches’. On the way, Glad mentions that Mrs. Beech sometimes rents out her bedroom and sleeps downstairs—and adds, with a wink, “so she seth.”
The “bumps and whimpers” that Glad has heard from Mrs. Beech’s place suggest that Mrs. Beech has been beating Will until he cries out. Glad’s insinuating comment, “so she seth” (“so she says”) implies that Mrs. Beech had sex with men to whom she rented her bedroom, whether for money or simply by choice. Glad’s claim that Mrs. Beech had sex with her renters, if true, further emphasizes the hypocrisy of Mrs. Beech’s extremely strict religiosity. Meanwhile, Glad’s claim that Mrs. Beech has gone on vacation hints that Mrs. Beech may have abandoned her children.
Themes
When they reach the Beeches’, Number 12, the warden says it seems empty—but Sammy scratches the front door, whining, and tries to herd Tom to it. A policeman walks by and asks what’s going on. Tom says that he thinks someone’s inside. The warden tells the police officer that he’s worried about the people who live in the apartment. The men decide to force the door. When they get it open, they unleash a stink like something has died. Sammy sprints to the door of the cupboard under the stairs and scratches at it. The warden opens the cupboard, and the police officer shines his flashlight inside.
The deathly stink inside Mrs. Beech’s apartment foreshadows that her abuse of Will and her baby daughter have escalated, possibly with a fatal conclusion.
Themes
