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Chapter 27
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Kind, Kindness, and Discrimination
The Power of Books
Hardship and Humanity
Change and Modernization
Autonomy and Interdependence
Summary
Analysis
Early on Sunday morning, Cussy packs up the food from Doc—two blocks of cheese, three loaves of bread, some fruit, jam, and candy—and leaves it on the porch of the school for the children. Sharing it makes the tests worthwhile, and she thanks God for his blessings.
Cussy Mary continues to turn hardship and suffering—the degradation and terror of the medical experiments—into humanity by sharing the food Doc gives her with those who need it more: Winnie and the students in her school.
Themes
On Wednesday night, Doc startles Cussy while she’s reading the book Jackson gave her. His tests have confirmed that Cussy has methemoglobinemia, a blood disorder that is carried by a recessive gene. He explains that when people with the recessive gene have children, they can pass the disorder on. It can be cured with a drug called methylene blue. Doc injects Cussy, and her hands change from blue to white. It’s astonishing; Cussy looks at her reflection in the mirror like she’s seeing a stranger. When she pinches her cheeks, they turn pink, not blue. But then, she rushes into the yard to vomit. Doc explains that the drug’s side effects, like her nausea, are usually temporary.
The explanation of Cussy’s condition and the medicine that “cures” it demonstrate both the potential and the limits of modern innovation. Knowing why her skin is Blue isn’t going to change the way people treat Cussy. And the drug can be lifesaving in the right circumstances but also cause devastating side effects. Nevertheless, Cussy has so internalized others’ hatred and fear of her blue skin that she thinks she is more attractive when she is white.
Themes
The white skin is also temporary, and by the time Doc tries to convince Pa to try it the following morning, Cussy is turning blue again. Pointing to the coal dust on his skin, Pa declares that he only needs his coal-blackened lungs fixed. Sadly, Doc doesn’t have a cure for that. Trying to convince Pa, Cussy takes another dose. She quickly turns white, but just as quickly must rush outside to vomit. If the drug is temporary, Pa declares it is “vanity, not a cure.” Taking it is “prideful” and “dangerous.” Doc tells Cussy she can stop taking it if the side effects are too much, but the thought of being Blue is more horrifying to her than the sickness. She can’t stop admiring herself in the mirror, despite the disapproval in Pa’s eyes.
There is a sharp contrast between Doc’s eagerness to “cure” Cussy’s blueness—even though her skin color is just a superficial difference—and his inability to address Pa’s black lung disease. People who are more concerned with the color of someone’s skin than their health and safety have the wrong priorities. Nevertheless, discrimination has so hurt Cussy that she grasps at the cure, even if it is, as Pa says, vanity. On one level, she recognizes that people shouldn’t care about her color, but on another, she knows that she won’t ever fit in with blue skin.
Themes
