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Chapter 35
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, Viola, and Ben go off the main road and head through the trees. Within 10 minutes, they hear gunshots in the distance. They run for a long time until Todd notices Ben is very winded and has to stop. They pause near a cemetery, and Todd says he thinks he’s finally ready to hear the truth that Ben has been promising to tell him.
This passage contrasts the journeys of Todd and Ben: Todd is at the beginning of his journey into adulthood, while Ben slowly starts to realize that he can’t keep up the same pace that he used to when he was younger. The audible gunshots and the cemetery all suggest that death is getting closer and closer to them.
Themes
Ben reveals that the Noise germ wasn’t part of Spackle warfare—it was always present on the New World. Shortly after arriving, the settler men’s thoughts began broadcasting to everyone. On the New World, everything talks to everything else. The early years of settlement on the New World were difficult, with bad crops, and some preachers began blaming the Spackle. The settlers had guns and the Spackle didn’t, so it was less of a war, more of an extermination.
Although the Spackle aren’t human, Ben’s story about the “war” between humans and Spackle echoes many real stories from history when one group of humans turned another group into a scapegoat for their own problems, leading to violence. As the reference to a New World suggests, the conflict between the humans with advanced weapons and the unprepared Spackle has direct parallels to the ways that early European settlers fought wars against and in some cases attempted to exterminate the indigenous people of the Americas.
Themes
Todd can tell from Ben’s Noise that the war didn’t stop with the Spackle. The men of Prentisstown couldn’t stand the way all the women were silent without Noise. Not all the men felt this way, including Ben and Cillian, but most did, and eventually, the men of Prentisstown started killing the women. They believed Aaron, who said that because the women were hiding something, they must be evil.
The novel has already implied strongly that the men of Prentisstown must have killed the women (since they all died and there was no actual Noise germ to kill them), but Todd himself is still surprised. This is perhaps because even with all that he’s learned recently about evil, he didn’t believe that people he knew were capable of such a thing.
Themes
Before the war, Jessica Elizabeth was the mayor of Prentisstown (back when it was still called New Elizabeth). She helped some girls and boys flee through the swamp but died with the other women when Mayor Prentiss took over. Todd himself was too young to flee at the time, so Jessica entrusted him to Ben and Cillian. Ben only stayed because he believed the men wouldn’t actually attack the women. Although Ben and Cillian themselves didn’t kill women, Ben says they weren’t innocent because they just stood back and watched it happen.
Todd gains a better understanding of why Matthew wanted to attack him earlier—Elizabeth was his mother, and her death was a direct result of the men of Prentisstown. Just as Todd himself struggles to understand how the men of Prentisstown could commit such violence, Ben didn’t believe it at the time either. Both Ben and Todd want to believe the best about people, and while this makes them hopeful, it can also leave them unprepared when the worst happens.
Themes
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From then on, boys in Prentisstown learned a version of truth about its history on the day they became men. Ben and Cillian felt like prisoners but wanted to wait until Todd was old enough to escape on his own.
The novel doesn’t judge Ben and Cillian’s choice to stay in Prentisstown, leaving it ambiguous as to whether they were too cautious or whether they made the pragmatic decision that was best for them and Todd.
Themes
Just then, Todd, Ben, and Viola hear the sound of one horse approaching. Todd realizes from the Noise that it’s Mr. Prentiss Jr. Todd senses Ben forming a plan in his Noise and doesn’t like it. Eventually, Ben says he’ll hold up Mr. Prentiss Jr so that Todd and Viola can escape to Haven. Todd doesn’t want to leave Ben, but Ben encourages him to go, holding on to hope.
Ben continues to prove how much he cares about Todd by making sacrifices for him. He lives up to his own ideal of hanging on to hope by continuing to keep fighting even after experiencing so many setbacks and witnessing so many terrible things.
Themes
