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Chapter 6: Zach
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
The next morning, Tom and Willie put Willie’s rubber sheet and pajamas on the wash line. They look in the shelter and see that it’s flooded a little. Tom says they’ll need a pump and suggests growing vegetables on the shelter. He says he’ll show Willie something, and they start walking. Though sore, Willie feels energized. He wants to run but believes it’s “wicked.” Noticing Willie’s fidgets, Tom suggests he race Sammy to the gate. Tom grabs Sammy’s collar, counts down, and yells “Go!” Willie sprints off. Tom becomes so excited that he runs too. Sammy wins the race. Willie is downcast, believing his classmates were right to call him “Willie Weakling.” Tom cheers him up by pointing out that Sammy has had more experience running—and Willie still beat Tom.
Willie believes that running is “wicked,” which implies that his mother taught him that boisterous physical activity was sinful. This teaching is another example of Willie’s mother using religion to shame and terrorize Willie into accepting beliefs that are actually just her idiosyncratic preferences. By contrast, Tom sees Willie’s energy, encourages him to express it, and talks him out of judging himself a “Willie Weakling” when he isn’t immediately fast with no practice.
Themes
Tom and Willie arrive at a field full of vegetable plots and fruit trees. Tom tells Willie he can help harvest them when it’s time. They return to the cottage and are piling more earth on the shelter when Zach arrives, asking whether Willie “can come out and play.” When Tom notes that Willie is already “out,” Zach comments thoughtfully that the phrase is “figurative.” Tom asks where Zach learned to talk so strangely, Zach sighs and says that people are always telling him he talks funny. Then he asks what Willie did to his hair, given that it’s blonder than it was before.
The word “figurative,” which means “not literal,” is advanced vocabulary for a child Zach’s age. Tom’s commentary on Zach’s way of talking suggests that Zach is both educated and urban in his speech patterns, contrasting both with the less educated Willie and the rural Tom. Meanwhile, Zach’s comment that Willie’s hair is blonder today suggests that his hair was extremely dirty before Tom convinced him to bathe. This is another detail that underscores his mother’s neglect.
Themes
Tom tells Willie to go and play. Zach asks whether he can see inside the shelter before they go. As soon as Tom says yes, Zach leaps inside—before Tom can warn him about the water. A moment later, George opens the gate, looking displeased, and asks whether Willie would like to come blackberry picking with him and “the twins.” Zach, still in the shelter, asks whether he can come too. Internally, George curses his mother—he didn’t want to ask Willie, and now another of the strange “townees” is involved. He agrees that Zach can come because he feels that he must, but he predicts that the twins will be angry.
Though Tom is kind to and supportive of Willie, not all the residents of Little Weirwold immediately band together in wartime to support the evacuated “townees” (i.e., Londoners). George’s instinctive distaste for the evacuees suggest tensions between England’s urban and rural populations at the beginning of World War II. It isn’t clear who “the twins” are, but context suggests that they are children about George’s age.
Themes
Zach tells them that he’s stuck in the shelter’s mud and needs to be pulled out. George, Tom, and Willie yank him free. Zach asks where he should meet George for blackberry picking. George “grunts” that they’ll meet in front of the shop in one hour. An hour later, Willie walks up to the shop and spots George and two girls, who are twins. He looks nervously for Zach and spies him approaching in a “bright red shirt.” Zach introduces Willie to the girls and asks their names again. They call themselves Carrie and Ginnie—and they’re annoyed. George was correct that they didn’t want Willie and Zach along: they think Willie’s too quiet and Zach talks too much.
George’s “grunt[ing]” response to Zach indicates his displeasure at having to socialize with two evacuees instead of just one, another detail suggesting cultural tensions between urban and rural English civilians at the start of World War II. Zach’s “bright red shirt” once again reminds readers that Willie’s mother thinks that red is sinful and thus heightens the implication that she wouldn’t like Zach—but it also suggests that Zach will be good for Willie, unlike Willie’s mother.
Themes
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George, Carrie, and Ginnie lead the way toward Ivor’s farm. As Willie and Zach walk behind them, Zach whispers that the others seem rather standoffish. Willie points out that the others invited them along, and Zach notes that, whatever the case, he and Willie will manage to have fun. When they reach the blackberry bushes, the girls split off, leaving George, Willie, and Zach together. Immediately, Zach asks whether the girls are annoyed with George or with him and Willie. Amused, George points out some poisonous red berries and indicates a good blackberry bush for Willie and Zach to pick.
Zach notices right away that the village children are not happy about socializing with evacuees, indicating both his social savvy and the tensions between urban and rural English civilians at the start of World War II. Yet when Zach humorously asks George about Carrie and Ginnie’s annoyance, George is entertained—suggesting that his prejudice against the urban evacuees may be weak and easily overcome.
Themes
After an hour of blackberry picking, the children take a break to drink lemonade. When they return to the bushes, they pick closer together and chat about what they like. Carrie likes reading and climbing trees, Ginnie likes collecting flowers and sewing, George likes fishing, and Zach likes acting and writing stories (though he never finishes them). Willie hopes the others will forget about him—he can’t read and feels he has no hobbies—but when Zach asks him directly, he admits that he likes to draw. Zach asks whether Willie could draw him, and Willie says he could try.
When Willie admits that he likes to draw, Zach asks right away for Willie to practice his drawing with Zach as a model. This prompt, supportive request may foreshadow that Zach and the other children Willie is meeting will be more supportive of his artistic sensitivity than his cruel classmates back in London.
Themes
The children take another break from blackberry picking to have a picnic lunch, which includes chocolate cake—the first chocolate cake Willie has ever tasted. After picking more berries, they head home with full baskets. When they reach Tom’s house, they see that Tom has put a plank floor, beds, and other items inside the bomb shelter. Willie and George exclaim over the job Tom has done, though Tom just says modestly that it’s good “to be comfortable.” After the other children go home, Tom and Willie make some jam from the blackberries; Willie is proud of himself for making jam and “surviv[ing]” an outing with other children.
Willie has never had chocolate cake before this day, another detail hinting at how deprived his childhood with his mother has been, while his relief at “surviv[ing]” his outing with children his own age shows how socially anxious his mother’s abuse has made him. Tom’s efforts to make his bomb shelter “comfortable,” meanwhile, illustrates how civilians try to acclimate to dangerous wartime conditions.
Themes
