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Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mysterious Benedict Society, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Confidence and Growing Up
Deception vs. Truth
Loneliness vs. Friendship
Control vs. Freedom
Hope
Summary
Analysis
The message broadcasts continue the next day, putting all four members of the Mysterious Benedict Society on edge until the broadcasts conclude in the evening. As the children meet up in the boys’ room, Reynie figures out what Mr. Benedict’s message means. Since time is running out, the children need to become Messengers as soon as possible. To accomplish this, they need to earn top grades, which can only happen if they “become what [they] are not”––that is, if they cast aside their shared love of truth and start to cheat on assignments.
The Mysterious Benedict Society’s mission poses threats to their safety, but it also threatens their morality and identities. The children share a love of truth, and their understandings of themselves are shaped by this innate honesty. To succeed in their mission, however, they must suppress their love of truth and use the tool of their enemy––deception––in order to defeat him.
Themes
Kate and Sticky are horrified by Reynie’s suggestion. Reynie does not want to cheat, but he reasons that their very presence on the island is a deception. Still, he worries that his love of truth might not be as powerful as his friends’. Constance argues that Mr. Curtain is the real deceiver, and they need to beat him at his own game. The children send a message to Mr. Benedict to ask if they should cheat. He responds simply, “Do not get caught.”
Reynie is the first to understand why the children must cheat, but his friends’ reactions push him back to his familiar self-doubt. Constance distinguishes between the Mysterious Benedict Society’s deception and Mr. Curtain’s deception; she sees Mr. Curtain’s dishonesty as part of his character, while the children’s dishonesty is simply a tool they must use. This simplistic perspective on morality suits Constance’s immaturity, as she fails to recognize that the children are moving away from their shared values and toward moral ambiguity.
Themes
The members of the Mysterious Benedict Society spend the night practicing their cheating. They arrange for Kate and Constance to cheat off Sticky and Reynie, and their teamwork helps the girls improve on their quizzes. Between classes, they hear that one of the Messengers is graduating. Kate distracts S.Q. Pedalian so the others can question the graduating Messenger about his special duties and privileges, but the boy becomes agitated and insists that he can’t tell them anything.
Once the children decide to cheat, they quickly arrange a system that involves each member of the team. This speaks to the group’s growing bond and the trust they have in each other. It also highlights how crucial teamwork is to their success. In addition to working towards jobs as Messengers, the children continue to explore other avenues of investigation, such as questioning the graduating Messenger. His confusion and anxiety suggest that Mr. Curtain has means of controlling his Messengers that the Society has yet to uncover.
Themes
