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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in James and the Giant Peach, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Children vs. Adults
Assumptions vs. Curiosity
Nature and Growing Up
Fun, Nonsense, and Absurdity
Summary
Analysis
The hole in the peach is about the size of a fox’s hole. James crouches down and crawls inside it. He realizes it’s a damp, murky tunnel. It smells like fresh peach. James takes bites out of the walls of the tunnel as he crawls deeper into the fruit. Finally, he hits his head on the pit of the peach. James runs his hands over the pit, which is bumpy and feels like wood. Then, he notices a door carved into the pit. It opens when James pushes it. He crawls through the door and hears voices saying that they’ve been waiting for him. James looks with horror at the speakers, but he can’t leave the peach—the door is gone.
For James, the peach is interesting because it’s unknown—his only goal is to figure out what’s inside. (Though it also provides him sustenance when his aunts won’t feed him, suggesting that nature can also be a source of nourishment for children.) James’s horror at whomever he finds inside the peach suggests he’s making snap judgments about them out of fear.
Themes
