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Chapter 33
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
James tells the Centipede to cut through a string. This doesn’t do anything, but James points out that the peach lost a lot of juice due to the Cloud-Men’s hailstones. After a few more gulls fly away, the peach begins to descend. It descends slowly, giving its passengers time to discuss what will happen once they land. The Ladybug wonders if they’ll be in the newspapers, while the Centipede asks for help polishing his boots. Just then, a huge airplane flies right above them. As it passes, it slices all of the strings and lets all of the seagulls loose. The peach plummets. The Earthworm begs for James to save them, but James can’t. He tells his friends to shut their eyes.
Once again, James comes up with a plan that seems guaranteed to be successful by letting the seagulls go gradually. The Earthworm doesn’t even have anything to say about it. However, it’s a major leap for the Earthworm when, once the peach does fall, he asks James to save them. On some level, the Earthworm knows that James is more capable than the Earthworm gives him credit for. It just takes a truly life or death situation for the Earthworm to be able to voice that.
Themes
