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Chapter 24
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
Todd is shocked because he thought all the Spackle died in the war. The Spackle is clearly an alien, with big ear flaps and black eyes. Todd’s Noise is getting red, so Viola warns him to calm down. Todd can tell from the Spackle’s Noise that he (the Spackle) is picturing a fishing spear.
Once again, Noise creates a damaging feedback loop, where Todd sees the Spackle as hostile, but it’s possible the Spackle is only reacting to Todd’s own red Noise. This could be an allegory for how information overloads in the real world, like the internet, can encourage violent tendencies.
Themes
Todd and the Spackle both leap, with Todd brandishing his knife. Todd wants to prove that he can kill. Viola tries to stop Todd, saying the Spackle is just afraid, but Todd plunges the knife into the Spackle’s chest and twists it. The Spackle bleeds out and dies.
Although Todd has managed to overcome many of the tendencies he learned in Prentisstown, he ultimately can’t shake the idea that being a man means being willing to fight, to the death if needed. And so, Todd’s first kill ends up being the Spackle. This is perhaps because it can’t put up much resistance or perhaps because, unlike Aaron or Mr. Prentiss Jr., the Spackle is a total stranger to him, and he struggles to see it as a fellow sentient being.
Themes
Todd tries to defend what he did by saying the Spackle killed his Ma and lots of other people on the New World, but Viola shouts at Todd to remind him that everything he learned when he was younger is a lie. Todd thinks back, and he can recognize the fear that was coming from the Spackle’s Noise. He realizes that he’s a killer. He throws down his bloody knife, and they decide that they have to leave before any more Spackles show up.
Just as Todd caused destruction by refusing to consult Viola about his Ma’s journal earlier, he now causes an unnecessary death by not listening to her pleas that the Spackle was just afraid. Todd seems to have gotten complacent in his belief that he was different from the other men of Prentisstown, not realizing that fear and the heat of the moment could still lead him to act exactly like them.
Themes
As Todd and Viola are hurrying through the woods, all of a sudden Aaron shows up and catches Viola. He knocks her out with something on a cloth, then knocks Todd down onto his stomach. The last thing Todd sees is Aaron raising the knife over his head and bringing it down.
Just as earlier Aaron got attacked by crocodiles while attacking Todd, now Todd gets attacked with his own knife after killing the Spackle. This passage shows once again how violence is a cycle and how people who use violence often bring it on themselves.
Themes
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