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Chapter 24: Nina
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Six of Crows, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Greed
Friendship and Difference
Trauma, the Past, and Moving Forward
Identity, Values, and Growing Up
Summary
Analysis
In her rubber slippers and Kaz’s gloves (wearing them feels inappropriate, but she needs to protect her hands), Inej enters the incinerator. She has 70 pounds of rope coiled around her. At first, Inej is hopeful—but she can already feel the hot stone through the gloves. She’s sweating within moments, and as she struggles to get purchase, Inej realizes her rubber soles are melting. Inej struggles to climb up even a little bit higher. They’re all going to die, and it’s going to be her fault. As she climbs, she’s angry at Kaz. Why is she here in the first place? Does she just want to pay her debts, or is it because she has romantic feelings for Kaz?
As Inej dons Kaz’s gloves to protect her hands, he symbolically protects her as she undergoes this ordeal. The incinerator itself represents adversity, and in this passage, Inej fears that she won’t be able to complete this difficult task. Her slippers (her identity as the Wraith) and the gloves (Kaz’s protection) aren’t enough to propel her up the incinerator, at least not when she has no idea why she should even keep climbing.
Themes
Stepping back in time, Inej tried to run away early on after coming to work at the Menagerie. Tante Heleen beat her and chained her up for a month, while still making her work. Then, Tante Heleen called Inej to her salon, where Kaz was waiting. Kaz coldly brushed Heleen off and she left. Alone with Inej, Kaz told Inej about the Dregs, insulted Heleen, and asked if Inej is her real name and what she wanted to be called. Then, he shared that when Inej approached him the other night, he didn’t hear her. So, he’d like her to become his “spider” and gather secrets about rich people in Ketterdam so Kaz can steal their money. He showed her the unfair contract Inej signed with Heleen, and he explained that Per Haskell bought Inej’s indenture and Inej will eventually be able to buy her freedom. Inej accepted.
Kaz comes across here as frank, somewhat dangerous, and fundamentally honorable and respectful. He doesn’t seem afraid of Heleen at all, and importantly for Inej, he asks her what she’d like to be called. This is a far cry from the dehumanizing identification system the Menagerie uses, where girls are identified by their nationality and an animal (the Suli lynx, for example). Kaz might want a lot from Inej, but he also demonstrates that she’s going to receive some basic respect working for him that Heleen wouldn’t dream of giving her.
Themes
Now, back in the present, Inej considers why she trusted Kaz that night, and she wonders why she still trusts him. She realizes that she’s here, about to die in an incinerator, because she hasn’t had a clear goal. She thought she wanted to go home to her parents, but what will she tell them? Inej feels something damp on her cheeks—rain. It seems to wash away everything bad, and Inej forces herself to climb. She realizes that with her cut of the earnings from this job, she can buy a ship to hunt down slavers. She has to make it out of the incinerator so she can reach her future.
Here, Inej finally realizes what she’s missing: purpose, and specifically a purpose that’s bigger than herself. By taking down slavers, Inej will be able to help others and, it’s implied, heal her own trauma by dedicating herself to others. With this newfound reason to keep going, Inej realizes she can make the climb. Additionally, the narration frames the rain as being cleansing, suggesting that the climb represents Inej’s rebirth.
Themes
