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Chapter 20: Spooky Cott
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
On the first day of school, Will and Zach go to the Thatchers’ to see Carrie in uniform off to her first day of high school. Mr. Thatcher is very proud, though Mrs. Thatcher is still a bit dubious. Afterward, Will and Zach go play in the woods before their school starts. Zach admits that he’s worried about his parents: the Nazis have been bombing London more intensely, but his parents won’t leave, saying they want to help the war effort even if they can’t fight.
Carrie’s mother is still skeptical of her daughter’s desire to attend an academic high school and develop her intellectual talents, a detail that shows the sexist cultural roadblocks girls faced in 1930s England. Meanwhile, the danger to Zach’s parents emphasizes the increasing peril that threatens civilians in London as the war continues.
Themes
When Will and Zach get to school, they find Geoffrey Sanderton with Miss Thorne. The adults are explaining a new nature studies project when Nancy Little arrives and Zach is sent home. At the school lunch break, Will runs to the Littles’, where Nancy tells Will that Zach is packing for London because his father was injured in a fire. Will sprints to Zach’s room, where Zach tells him that his mother doesn’t want him to travel to London. But Zach feels that he must go see his father in case he “never see[s] him again.” He gives Will his great-grandfather’s copy of the works of William Shakespeare as a keepsake. Will promises to “look after it.”
Zach’s father’s severe injury—Zach is worried he may “never see [his father] again” if he doesn’t visit immediately—makes clear the looming danger over the civilian characters that the Nazi bombings represent, as the fire that injured Zach’s father was presumably the result of a bombing. Meanwhile, Zach seems to know that his trip to London is dangerous—hence his decision to give Will a treasured family heirloom. Will’s promise to “look after” the book shows his refusal to consider that Zach might never return from London.
Themes
Zach leaves for London the next day. The day after, September 7, 1940, is Will’s birthday. Will has a party, but he waits to unwrap the gift Zach has left for him until everyone has gone: part one of an “epic” that Zach has titled The Villainous Doctor Horror, as well as some art supplies, a book about art, and a sketch of Will painting. On the 8 p.m. news, severe bombings in London are reported. The next morning, a special news bulletin announces that at least 400 people are dead and 1,400 wounded. Two mornings after, Dr. Little and Nancy Little come to the cottage. Nancy has clearly been crying. Will, realizing, that Zach has been killed, faints.
The Nazi Luftwaffe (air force) mercilessly bombed London in September 1940 as part of a larger military campaign to control the UK’s airspace known as the Battle of Britain (July–October 1940). Though the UK eventually won the Battle of Britain, approximately 23,000 civilians were killed in the process. Zach’s death makes clear that none of the novel’s civilian characters are safe during wartime. In addition, the fact that Zach was Jewish and was killed in a Nazi bombing alludes to the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide against Jewish civilians occurring during World War II that killed an estimated six million Jewish people. This indirect invocation of the Holocaust hammers home to readers the civilian death toll of World War II.
Themes
