Previous
Symbols
In Good Night, Mr. Tom, Rachel’s paint box represents Tom Oakley’s emotional journey from antisocial, childless widower to adoptive father. Tom’s wife Rachel and their baby son died about 40 years prior to the events of the novel. Readers learn about Rachel’s paint box when Tom is fetching sheets for William Beech, the eight-year-old evacuee from London whom officials have assigned to stay with Tom in the remote village of Little Weirwold. He keeps the box and a few other possessions of Rachel’s shut in a closet with the spare sheets, a placement that symbolizes how Tom has shut away his emotions to avoid his pain over Rachel’s death. Yet at the end of William’s first day with Tom, Tom takes out the paint box and blows dust from the top. This gesture foreshadows his desire to give artistic William the paint box. It also foreshadows how caring for William will open Tom’s heart. The next day, Tom does offer the paint box to William so that someone will finally use it. Much later in the novel, readers learn that Tom gave Rachel a new pot of paint every month she was pregnant with their child. As she and the baby died shortly after the birth, Tom’s gift of the paint box to William takes on new meaning, reflecting how Tom’s willingness to open his heart to love and finally confront his grief has allowed him to become a father to William as he wasn’t able to be a father to his baby. Thus, when Tom gives William the paint box, the gift foreshadows his legal adoption of William toward the end of the novel.
Rachel’s Paint Box Quotes in Good Night, Mr. Tom
The Good Night, Mr. Tom quotes below all refer to the symbol of Rachel’s Paint Box. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2: Little Weirwold
Quotes
Underneath the attic, Tom sat in his armchair with Sammy collapsed across his feet. He held a large black wooden paint box on his lap. He raised the lid, gazed for an instant at the contents and quietly blew away the dust from the tops of the brightly colored pots.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3: Saturday Morning
Quotes
He raised the lid and stared at the brightly colored pots. “Paints?” he inquired.
Tom grunted in the affirmative. “Bit old, but the pots’ll do. You paint?” Willie’s face fell. He longed to paint. “Nah, ‘cos I can’t read.”
“The ones that can read and write gits the paint, that it?”
“Yeh.” Willie touched one of the pots gently with his hand and then hastily took it away.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18: Recovery
Quotes
After they had died, he had bought the pot of blue paint and placed it in the black wooden box that he had made for her one Christmas, when he was eighteen. As he closed the lid, so he shut out not only the memory of her but also the company of anyone else who reminded him of her.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Good Night, Mr. Tom LitChart as a printable PDF.
Rachel’s Paint Box Symbol Timeline in Good Night, Mr. Tom
The timeline below shows where the symbol Rachel’s Paint Box appears in Good Night, Mr. Tom. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Meeting
...he opens a cupboard with sheets, a blanket, and some keepsakes of Rachel (including her paint box ) and their baby son, who died shortly after Rachel did. Tom takes some bedding...
(full context)
Chapter 2: Little Weirwold
...call him “Tom.” Willie says, “Good night, Mr. Tom.” Tom goes downstairs and contemplates Rachel’s wooden box .
(full context)
Chapter 3: Saturday Morning
Tom sees Willie looking at the paint box on the table. He tells Willie to open it. When Willie asks if there are...
(full context)
Chapter 18: Recovery
...girl. When she died, he bought blue paint but shut it in the black wooden paint box —shutting out her memory and people that reminded him of her. Will wakes from his...
(full context)
