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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Knife of Never Letting Go, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Cost of Violence
Information vs. Knowledge
Bigotry and Misogyny
Humanity’s Connection to Nature
Summary
Analysis
An old man who also holds a rifle greets Hildy with a kiss when she gets back. His name is Tam, and like Todd, he also has Noise. He greets Todd enthusiastically and says it’s been a while since he had guests. Todd asks Tam how Hildy avoided the Noise and if somehow they found a cure. Hildy says she’s heard rumors that in a place called Haven they’re working on a cure, but she isn’t sure if that’s true.
A haven is a place of safety and seems to offer the possibility of refuge for Todd and Viola if they can just make it there. The fact that Haven might even have a cure for Noise makes it seem almost too good to be true. Hildy herself acknowledges that she isn’t sure all these rumors are true, but the hope that they might be helps Todd and Viola find the motivation to keep going.
Themes
Todd is confused because he thought Noise killed women. Tam explains it’s the opposite, and actually women are immune to it, and so Viola is safe from Todd’s Noise. Tam explains that Prentisstown has a sad story behind how it ended up in its current condition, but Todd doesn’t believe him. He’s also still worried about Mayor Prentiss and his men following him, but Hildy reassures him that people from that side of the river never cross over.
Although Todd is more open to the outside world than most in Prentisstown, he still recoils at the idea that everything he grew up leaning might be a lie. This passage reveals that Todd has a lot to learn, but it also hints that perhaps even the veteran Hildy could learn some things from Todd, as she underestimates just how zealous Mayor Prentiss and his men are.
Themes
Tam tells Todd he would’ve gotten lost in the Noise many years ago if Hildy hadn’t saved him. Todd asks if this means Tam was in the war, and Tam admits he was but doesn’t want to talk about it. Tam leads Todd on a tour around the farm. Todd notices that the farmhouse looks like a bird with its wings folded—Tam says it’s designed to look like a swan, a bird Todd has never seen.
Unlike Mayor Prentiss, who takes pride in his settlement’s prior military success, Tam feels nothing but shame about the violence he committed in the past. While meeting the women is the biggest shock for Todd, Todd also finds it unusual how Tam differs from many of the men Todd knew in Prentisstown.
Themes
Viola comes up to the farmhouse and immediately recognizes it as a type of settler spaceship that they have converted into a house by adding wood to it. Todd notes that Viola’s ship looked much smaller than this settler ship. She admits that her ship was only a scouting ship. Todd realizes this means that her settler ship is still out in space. Viola laments that she has no way to warn the people up in that ship about what conditions are like on this planet—and there are thousands of people in the ship. She realizes this is what “warn them” meant in Todd’s journal.
Although this novel presumably takes place in the future if it involves spaceships, it also has a hint of historical fiction to it, with the houses being made out of simple materials, just like settlers would have used in the past. This combination of past and present shows how some issues remain constant throughout human history, with these future settlers on a new planet dealing with the same challenges of survival and isolation that settlers in new areas did in the past.
Themes
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