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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age and Self-Confidence
Magic, Belonging, and Protection
Family
Mortality and Meaning
Truth vs. Deception
Summary
Analysis
When the children reach the house, they see that a bomb has completely destroyed it; small fires burn everywhere. Miss Peregrine squawks in terror but still seems unable to turn back. They wonder if this is why the loop isn’t working: perhaps Miss Peregrine injured her head and can’t control her powers. They decide that the best course of action is to figure out where the wights are taking the ymbrynes. Horace starts to draw a scene from his dreams with the soot: a dark forest, snow on the ground, and a severe building covered in razor wire. The problem is, Horace doesn’t know exactly where this building is.
The house’s destruction represents the idea that the children no longer have the same protection that they once did—but nor do they have the same restriction. Now, without the house and the time loop tying them to the island, the kids are free to seek out any place they choose—in this case, hoping to save Miss Avocet and confront the wights before they do even further damage in their pursuit of immortality.
Themes
Enoch and Emma argue about what to do. Emma wants to go in search of the place, while Enoch thinks it’s too risky. But Emma insists that if they stay, the wights and hollows will simply return. Emma suggests that finding another ymbryne can help them fix their loop, and gradually the others agree. They decide to abandon the house, scavenging a few medical supplies to help Millard and a peculiar atlas to help them find other loops. By jumping from one loop to another, they can go very far back in the past. They worry that the wights have likely found many of the other ymbrynes, but Jacob insists that he’ll protect the others.
Here again, Jacob and Emma both show their transformations. For so long, Emma was waiting for Abe to return so that they could be together; likewise, Jacob felt that others were determining his life path. Now, both are able to gain control of their lives, suggesting a newfound maturity and confidence in their ability to lead and protect the other peculiar children. This suggests, too, that the peculiar children create a sense of belonging and protection for each other as a community even more than the Miss Peregrine’s home ever did.
Themes
Emma is grateful that Jacob wants to stay with them, but she admits that if he comes with them, the loop will close behind them and he may never be able to return to his own time. Jacob assures her that he has nothing holding him to that time anymore—he’s not sure he wants to go back. But still, he considers what she’s saying, taking a walk alone. He thinks that even if he goes home, that world would still be dangerous, threatened by wights, and he would live in constant fear for his family. Or, he could go with the children who, for the first time, are planning out their future. When Jacob returns, he tells Emma he’s coming with her—but that he has one thing he has to do first.
Again, for the first time in Jacob’s life, he realizes that he has the ability to make his own decisions, and he can forge a life independent of his family’s expectations of him—both his biological family and the family that he has created with the peculiar children. It makes sense, then, that the path that is most exciting to Jacob is the one in which he has the ability to map out a new path for himself and lead the other children, because he has a newfound confidence which allows him to do so.
Themes
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Jacob returns to the 21st century just before dawn. His dad is still asleep, and rather than wake him, Jacob writes a letter, trying to explain as best he can what has happened. But Jacob quickly realizes that he’d sound insane, so instead, he throws the letter in the trash. Just then, his dad appears in Jacob’s room, asking where Jacob has been. When Jacob explains that he’s been with his friends, his dad grows furious, sick of Jacob’s lies. Just as Jacob starts to protest, Emma (with her fire), Olive (levitating), and Millard (who appears to be a floating bandage), enter the room. Jacob’s dad wonders if he’s still asleep, but Jacob explains that he’s not.
This exchange with Jacob’s dad puts a final point on the fact that lies—and patterns of concealing the truth—can be really damaging to a relationship. Jacob has spent so much time making up stories about what he’s been doing that now his dad doesn’t know what to believe—and even the truth, Jacob knows, will sound like a lie to his father. It is only when Jacob can demonstrate the truth to his dad that they can finally have a real conversation about what’s been happening—something that Abe never did and which created resentment in their relationship as a result.
Themes
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Jacob reveals to his dad that he’s going away and doesn’t know when he’ll be back. Jacob’s dad doesn’t really understand, so he wanders back to bed. Just before he goes, though, he tells Jacob to be careful. After his dad has left, Emma gives Jacob a picture of her and Abe, hoping that this will provide some proof that she was real. She writes his dad a note on the back, and Jacob retrieves his own letter from the trash, hoping that his dad will believe him. Emma’s note explains that Jacob is telling the truth, that they’ll keep each other safe, and that Abe was an honorable man.
Though the reader never sees Jacob’s dad’s reaction to the photo that Emma leaves, Jacob’s dad’s advice that Jacob should be careful suggests that they have or will achieve some closure between them—and with Abe as well. This is something that only telling the full truth has allowed them to do, a reminder that deception is self-defeating. Moreover, even though Jacob is going off with his found family, this exchange shows that his dad is still extremely important to him, and that for all their conflict, they want each other to be happy.
Themes
Jacob and the kids return to the cairn, saying goodbye to their loop. They bury Victor sadly and say goodbye to the house, taking just a few things that they can carry. They venture into the village, where people are so shocked that they hardly notice the peculiar children. It’s September 4th for the first time in a long time, and the kids feel more alive than ever. Jacob does, too.
This passage emphasizes the idea that life only carries meaning because, at some point, it ends. The kids understand that they must finally bury Victor, and that a life of constantly reviving him was pointless because it was a life devoid of meaning. On the other hand, now that the children lack the protection of the home and are actually aging and moving forward for the first time in a long time, their lives feel more meaningful than ever.
Themes
At one time, Jacob dreamed of escaping what he thought was an ordinary life, but now he realizes that he just failed to realize how extraordinary his life was. Now, it’s impossible to return to, just like the children’s home. The kids, along with Miss Peregrine in bird form, set out in three rowboats, and Bronwyn takes pictures of them on an old camera. They take none of their photo albums—perhaps now they’ll make a new one, which Jacob might show to his grandkids someday. And then, on the horizon, they see a set of battleships. They row faster.
This final passage provides a bookend with the opening of the book, in which Jacob dreamed of being an explorer. Now, he has the opportunity to actually achieve that dream, showing how he has come of age enough to determine what he wants to do with his life. Moreover, ending with Bronwyn taking new photos suggests that the kids are no longer stuck in the past—they are creating new memories for a meaningful future. Jacob’s thought that he will someday show the photos to his own grandkids suggests that like his grandfather, he believes that only by living, growing, and knowing that life will someday end can he find meaning in the present.
Themes
