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Chapter 3: Saturday Morning
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
Tom and Willie ride Tom’s horse-drawn cart to the blacksmith’s, where Tom unhitches his horse, Dobbs, and ties her up in a shed. Tom and Willie head to a newspaper stand, where a headline reads, “Poland Invaded!” Inside, as Tom buys tobacco, he sees Willie looking at comics and barks at him to select a comic and a candy for himself. Willie, who has never been allowed to choose something for himself before, cautiously picks a lollipop and then reminds Tom that he can’t read. Tom gruffly offers to read the comic to Willie after his Bible story—and feels shocked at his own willingness to disturb his 40-year routine. Willie picks a comic, and they continue doing errands.
Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939; the newspaper headline announcing this fact reminds readers that this scene takes place just a day after the invasion, which started World War II (1939–1945). Tom’s simultaneous generosity toward Willie and gruffness with him indicate how unsettled Tom is by his fast-growing attachment to Willie. It also indicates how that attachment is quickly changing his own previously antisocial behavior.
Themes
As Tom and Willie walk to the draper’s shop, they see young soldiers and newly evacuated children near the railway station. Inside the draper’s, Tom gives the draper a list of materials for Mrs. Fletcher, explaining that Willie only has the clothes he’s wearing. When the draper brings out various colors of corduroy, Tom tells Willie to pick two. Willie, hesitating, picks green and navy. He loves red, but his mother has told him that red is “sinful.” After the draper has wrapped up the corduroy, Tom and Willie go to the shoe store, where Tom gets Willie a good pair of leather boots. Willie is shocked that the boots are for him.
Willie’s love of the color red hints at an artistic sensibility, while his mother’s claim that red is “sinful” suggests that she holds idiosyncratic and expansive ideas about what counts as a sin. Willie’s shock that Tom would buy him boots shows, yet again, how materially and emotionally deprived Willie’s abusive childhood has been.
Themes
After Tom and Willie exit the draper’s, Willie points to a paint shop. Tom feels sudden sadness: the paint shop was his wife Rachel’s favorite, and he hasn’t gone back inside since her death. He asks whether Willie wants to look. When Willie nods, Tom agrees that he can look in the window, but that’s it. They go over. As Willie stares lovingly at the art supply display in the window, Tom recalls how much Rachel loved colors and would talk about painting the sky. When Willie begins drawing in the condensation on the store window, Tom harrumphs and walks away to the library. Willie hurries after him.
Willie’s excitement over the paint shop again hints at his love of art. Meanwhile, Tom’s avoidance of the paint shop, which his wife used to love, illustrates how grief has caused Tom to avoid and repress his emotional pain. His willingness to approach the paint shop with Willie shows that his new attachment to Willie is helping him overcome his grief—but his quick retreat when he sees Willie drawing on the window suggests that he is not yet ready to be reminded of artistic Rachel too directly.
Themes
In the library, Tom approaches the librarian, Miss Emilia Thorne, and says that he wants to sign Willie up at the library. Miss Thorne exclaims in shock that Tom has a child with him, but before she can mention Tom’s ill temper, she changes what she was about to say: “You’re . . . so busy.” Inwardly, Miss Thorne thinks that Tom always acts too busy to engage in community activities or prepare for the onrushing war. Feeling awkward at asking for a favor, Tom requests that Miss Thorne select for Willie a couple picture books and a book that Willie might like Tom to read to him.
Miss Thorne believes Tom to be a bad-tempered man—contrasting with readers’ perceptions of Tom’s kind and generous care for Willie. The discrepancy between Miss Thorne’s beliefs about Tom and his behavior with Willie suggests that Willie has brought out Tom’s kind and loving personality, which he has previously buried beneath his superficial antisocial tendencies.
Themes
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As Miss Thorne prepares Willie’s library card, Tom steps outside the library. People are standing and talking nervously in little knots in the town square. Tom glances at the art store, tells himself he’s too busy, and rushes off on his other errands. Yet on his way back to the library, he recalls that it’s been 40 years since he entered the art store. Though he hesitates at the sound of the bell on its door, he walks inside.
Though the novel doesn’t say why Tom enters the art store, readers can infer that he wants to buy a gift for Willie, who was fascinated by the art store earlier. Since Tom has been avoiding the art store since Rachel’s death, this small scene illustrates how caring for Willie helps Tom confront his memories of his dead family and grieve in a healthier way. This scene also implies that Tom wants to support Willie’s interest in art in a way Willie’s mother clearly has not.
Themes
Tom, with a new parcel, finds Willie in the library and tells him it’s time to leave. Willie, holding a picture book, points to a letter and asks Tom whether it’s an O. Tom says it is and asks whether Willie has learned his alphabet. Willie says he almost has, nervously asks whether Tom will help him, and waits for Tom to hit him—his mother always told him not to ask for help. Tom agrees to help, suggesting he can ask Willie’s teacher what Willie needs to practice. On their way out of the library, Miss Thorne gives them Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Inwardly, she thinks that Willie and Tom make an “odd couple,” and she plans to gossip about them.
Tom’s new parcel hints more strongly that Tom bought Willie a gift in the art store. If this is the case, then it shows how Willie is helping Tom heal from his grief at his artistic wife’s death and how Tom wants to support Willie’s interest in art. Willie half-expects that Tom will hit him after he asks for help, but he asks anyway, which indicates either that Tom’s kindness is encouraging Willie to be bolder or that Willie wants to learn read so badly that he's willing to risk a beating for it. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories (1902) is a famous collection of tall tales about animals intended for children. Miss Thorne’s belief that Willie and Tom are an “odd couple” emphasizes that she thinks it strange that curmudgeonly, antisocial Tom would be so caring toward a child.
Themes
At home, Tom unwraps a parcel, shows Willie his new pajamas, and asks whether he’ll sleep in his bed that night. When Willie suggests that beds are “for dead people,” Tom says that he’s slept in his own bed for more than 40 years without dying. They eat, and then Tom tells Willie the story of Noah’s Ark again and reads him “the daring exploits of Pecos Bill,” the hero of Willie’s comic. Afterward, Tom remakes Willie’s bed with a rubber sheet over the mattress in case Willie wets the bed again. When Willie asks whether Tom is angry, Tom says no: Sammy used to pee everywhere too. He explains that creatures need time to adjust to new homes. Willie, exhausted, falls asleep thinking about the boy he saw in the post office (Zach).
As discussed above, Willie’s belief that beds are “for bed people” likely derives both from his abusive mother’s refusal to get him a bed and from his having seen corpses laid out in beds for viewings at home wakes. Tom deals with Willie’s fears calmly and supportively, by pointing out that he himself has slept in a bed for decades without dying—a stark contrast with Willie’s mother, who has systematically instilled terror in him. Pecos Bill, a mythical cowboy first introduced in 1917 short stories by Edward O’Reilly, starred in a comic strip that was published from 1929 to 1938. Willie’s ongoing fascination with the boy he saw in the post office, meanwhile, underscores his longing for friends his own age.
Themes
