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Pages 41–52
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Once, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling
Innocence and Ignorance
Antisemitism vs. Human Dignity
Family
Morality, Violence, and Complicity
Summary
Analysis
Walking toward the city, Felix sees a fire in the distance. Worried that Nazis are burning books, he crosses some fields to investigate and sees a house on fire. He removes his hat, urinates on it, and puts it back on—an anti-blistering technique he learned while writing a story about his parents rescuing someone from a fire.
Felix’s decision to urinate on his hat, though comical, demonstrates that writing and reading stories can teach people helpful facts as well as entertaining them.
Themes
When Felix gets closer to the house, he crawls under the yard’s wire fence. In the yard are chickens, a man in pajamas, and a woman in a nightdress—and all of them have been shot to death. Felix sits down and cries, thinking that the man and woman are “Jewish book owners” whom the Nazis killed for protesting the burning of their books. He thinks to his parents: “Don’t put up a struggle. It’s only books.”
When Felix thinks, “It’s only books,” he reveals a limit to his allegiance to stories: while he loves them, he doesn’t think they’re worth dying for. Felix’s understanding of the situation is tragically and ironically mistaken; by contrast, readers know that the Nazi persecution of Jewish people wasn’t about “only books” and that Felix’s parents will likely die if Nazis apprehend them, regardless of whether or not they struggle.
Themes
A spark from the house catches Felix’s clothes. He rolls around trying to put out the fire and knocks into a girl (Zelda), “about six years old.” Horrified, he wonders who would kill a child over books and whether, perhaps, Jewish people are being persecuted for some other reason.
When Felix’s former neighbors chased him with intense animosity, he wondered whether books could possibly be the reason. Here his doubts return with greater force, as his moral instincts prevent him from believing that anyone would kill a six-year-old child over books.
Themes
Felix sees no blood on the girl (Zelda). He rolls her over and finds no wounds, only a bruise on her head. He hears her breathing—and engines in the distance. Seeing cars approach, Felix assumes the Nazis are returning to clean up the crime scene, a “criminal behavior” that Felix has read about. He picks up the girl and carries her under the fence to hide.
Felix interprets what he sees and hears according to his understanding of “criminal behavior,” which he likely gleaned from reading detective stories. He may be wrong about what’s going on; in Nazi-occupied Poland, Nazi soldiers would not necessarily feel the need to hide evidence of their violence. Yet his decision to flee with the girl seems both wise and good, illustrating his increasing understanding of the danger and his instinct to help others.
Themes
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Felix walks down the road carrying the girl (Zelda). When he asks her name, she doesn’t reply. Since his arms are getting tired, he stops at a haystack behind a hedge and puts her down. She starts crying for her parents. He tells her that he’s looking for his parents too, and that he’s going to the city to find them. He decides not to tell the girl about her parents’ murder until they’ve found his parents; then his mother can break the news, and they can take the girl to Mother Minka’s orphanage.
Felix immediately takes responsibility for this orphaned young girl, yet again demonstrating his moral goodness. Yet just as Mother Minka and Felix’s own parents kept him ignorant of the dangers and evils around him, so Felix decides to keep Zelda ignorant of her parents’ murder. As Felix’s ignorance has endangered him, so it is possible that Felix’s decision to keep Zelda ignorant will endanger her. The parallel between Felix’s ignorance and Zelda’s in this moment may also hint that, unbeknownst to Felix, his beloved parents could already be dead.
Themes
The girl (Zelda) asks for Felix’s name. After he tells her, she yells for her parents again. He tells her that he wants his parents too, which is why they’ll travel to the city. He asks whether her bruise hurts; when she says yes, he tells her that his mother will fix it. The girl, crying less, tells Felix his hat smells.
As Felix sees more of the world beyond the orphanage, he is coming to understand more of its evils and dangers—but in his childish innocence, he still believes that if he finds his beloved parents, they will be able to fix what is wrong.
Themes
Felix tells the girl (Zelda) that if she lies down, he’ll tell her a story about her family going on a picnic. The girl says her family doesn’t go on picnics. When he suggests a story about her family on an airplane, she denies that her families flies. Felix pities the girl: it’s “hard being an orphan if you haven’t got an imagination.” At last, he offers to tell her a story about a child who lived for “three years and eight months” in a mountain castle. The girl gives him a skeptical look but lies down. When Felix starts talking about a boy named William, the girl cuts in: “I’m a girl. My name’s Zelda. Don’t you know anything?”
When Felix muses that it’s “hard being an orphan if you haven’t got an imagination,” he implies that children use stories to escape pain, but he doesn’t yet realize that the stories he’s been telling himself about his parents may be similarly escapist. This passage also suggests that the stories children invent tend to be self-centered: though Felix names his story’s protagonist William after Richmal Crompton’s Just William series, the detail about living in a mountain castle for “three years and eight months” indicates that “William” is a stand-in for Felix, who lived in a mountain orphanage for exactly that long. In the same vein, Zelda’s reminder that she’s a girl implies that she wants a story with a female protagonist based on her.
Themes
