This Boy’s Life: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

During his first few days in Chinook, Jack can tell that Dwight is studying him and sizing him up. Dwight calls Jack lazy and accuses him of thinking he’s smarter than anyone else. When Dwight decides that Jack has too much free time, he signs the boy up for Boy Scouts, gives him a load of chores, and instructs Pearl to act as a spy when he isn’t around, reporting on whether Jack is keeping up with his chores. Some of the chores are normal, but some are bizarre, like the “mean whims” of a villain in a fairy tale.

Dwight has filled several boxes with horse chestnuts, and charges Jack with husking and shucking them. The husks are hard and covered in spines and bleed a juice which stinks and turns Jack’s hands orange. Dwight, though, will not let Jack to wear gloves while he husks chestnuts because he believes they look “effeminate.” Every night, Jack is made to shuck horse chestnuts, and the task takes him most of the winter. While he is shucking he is confined to the cramped mudroom, and as his new “siblings” pass him by on their way out the door or to the bathroom, they give him pitying looks but never sincerely offer to help. Norma is busy sneaking around with her boyfriend, Bobby Crow, and Skipper is hard at work customizing his beloved car. Pearl, meanwhile, hovers near Jack, clearly spying on him and reporting back to Dwight about his work ethic.

Dwight arranges for Jack to take on a paper route, which he completes every day after school. Jack earns between fifty and sixty dollars a month, but Dwight takes the money from Jack as soon as he gets it, promising that he’s putting it into a savings account for Jack to use when he’s older.

Jack misses his mother, who, in the weeks since Christmas, has still refused to give Dwight a firm answer about marriage. She tells Dwight—and Jack—that she wants to be completely sure before she makes a decision either way. Jack understands his mother’s hesitation, but is growing frustrated with the fact that he’s only able to see her when Dwight agrees to drive Jack down to Seattle. In front of Rosemary, Dwight is always kind to Jack, smiling at him and talking happily about all the fun things they’ve done together back in Chinook. With “revulsion” for Dwight—and himself—Jack plays along, never telling his mother about the cruel treatment he’s being forced to face.

At the end of each visit, Jack’s mother always pulls him aside and asks if there’s anything she needs to know about, but Jack always insists that everything’s fine. Each time Dwight drives Jack back up to Chinook, he always stops at the tavern and drinks. For the rest of the ride home, he drunkenly berates Jack for everything he does that is wrong.

Once a week, Jack and Dwight go to Boy Scout meetings. Dwight, having been a “serious” scout at Jack’s age, signs up to be Assistant Scoutmaster for Jack’s troop. After the end of every meeting, back at the house, Jack has to sit and listen while Dwight outlines all of the things that Jack did or said wrong in the meeting—goofing off with other boys, handling CPR technique wrong. Still, Jack likes being a Scout well enough; he dreams of the day when he will make it all the way up the ranks and become an Eagle Scout. He enjoys reading Skipper’s old Scout handbook, and Boy’s Life, the official Scout magazine, which profiles particularly adventurous Scouts around the country.

In March, Rosemary finally gives Dwight a date for when she’ll move up to Chinook. Dwight immediately begins renovating the house in a frenzy, painting everything in the house white—not just the walls, but the furniture and the piano, as well. A few days before Rosemary is supposed to come up, she calls on the phone and asks to talk to Jack. She asks Jack if he’s still feeling “good” about everything, and confesses she has been feeling low herself. She wants to make sure that Jack and Dwight are really getting along well. Jack answers that things are good—Dwight is in the room, but he figures that even if Dwight weren’t listening in, he’d give the same answer just to keep everything civil.

Rosemary tries one last time to impress upon Jack that it isn’t too late to change their minds—if Jack wants to come home, Rosemary will keep her job and find them a new place to live. Jack says that he understands, but in reality, feels that all of his suffering is, in a way, “fated.” He feels compelled to accept Dwight’s home as his own, and to accept Dwight as his father, even though neither make him feel safe or happy. He feels that his mother should know that things have already gone too far—they have sealed their fates.