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Chapter 33
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Noughts and Crosses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Division, and Tragedy
Awareness and Privilege
Love, Lust, Power, and Violence
Friendship
Youth, Innocence, and Growing Up
Family
Summary
Analysis
After history class, Callum asks Mr. Jason for a word. He wants to know why he got a C- as a midterm grade when he’s been excelling at homework and tests. Mr. Jason says the grade reflects Callum’s attitude, and asking about the grade at all reflects Callum’s bad attitude. He suggests Callum appeal his grade if he doesn’t like it. Callum says he will—but Mr. Jason says he’ll never amend the grade. Enraged, Callum asks why Mr. Jason hates him so much. Mr. Jason should be on his side, since he’s half nought. At this, Mr. Jason shakes Callum and asks where he heard that lie. Callum stumbles that he just assumed. Mr. Jason says that every time he sees a nought, he thanks God he's not one of them. He storms away.
No matter what Mrs. Paxton said earlier, Mr. Jason seems to genuinely dislike Callum and want him to fail—the way he’s grading Callum doesn’t seem fair. But it’s dangerous for Callum to bring up that he knows Mr. Jason’s mother was a nought. Mr. Jason’s defensive reaction seems to suggest that Mrs. Paxton was telling the truth, but that clearly hasn’t made Mr. Jason more sympathetic to noughts. Instead, it’s caused him to hate noughts. It’s worth considering that if Mr. Jason were to embrace his parentage, he could be putting himself at risk: other Crosses may treat him worse if they knew.
Themes
