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Chapter 52
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Where the Crawdads Sing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival, Necessity, and Violence
Independence vs. Human Connection
Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood
Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance
Summary
Analysis
The following day, Tom calls Tim O’Neal—his last witness—to the stand. Tim is a shrimper and is, incidentally, Hal Miller’s boss. Tim says he saw the same boat that Hall saw on the night of Chase’s murder, but he upholds that it didn’t belong to Kya, whose boat he has seen multiple times and would have recognized. Furthermore, Tim informs the jury that many people in town have boats that are roughly the same size and shape as Kya’s.
Once again, the primary defense that Tom tries to build for Kya is that the witnesses who have testified against her are all jumping to unfair conclusions. In this moment, Tim suggests that it would be impossible to know for sure if Kya was really the one in the boat speeding toward the fire tower on the night of Chase’s death. Because Hal Miller has been influenced by various prejudices against Kya, though, he assumed the worst of her.
Themes
Now that Tom is finished questioning his witnesses, Eric delivers his closing statement. In doing so, he reminds the jury that Kya was heard shouting the words, “I will kill you!” at Chase. He also brings up the red fibers found on Chase’s jacket, as well as the fact that Kya is quite capable of taking her boat out at night and doing everything necessary to cover her tracks—this, he says, is made evident simply by the way she has lived her life. He then encourages the jury to do their “duty” by finding Kya guilty.
Eric’s argument rests on the very prejudices and assumptions about Kya’s life that Tom has been trying to dispel. When he says that Kya would have been capable of sneakily murdering Chase and then covering up her actions, he frames her as somebody who’s accustomed to carrying out nefarious deeds—a conception of Kya that is heavily informed by the fact that nearly everybody in Barkley Cove is suspicious of her simply because she has led a unique life on the outskirts of society.
Themes
In Tom’s closing statement, he emphasizes that everyone in Barkley Cove has mistreated Kya for her entire life, calling her the “Marsh Girl” and making up scary stories about her reclusiveness. However, he says, none of these stories have been true or accurate. In fact, they’ve only obscured the truth about Kya, which is that she was abandoned as a child and left to survive on her own in the marsh. Instead of reaching out to help her, the townspeople have rejected and excluded her. This, Tom says, is the only reason that Kya is on trial for murder—because everyone has made unfair assumptions about her. After all, there is no hard evidence that she was present on the night of Chase’s murder. Consequently, he entreats the jury to finally show kindness and compassion to the “Marsh Girl” by finding her not guilty.
Tom’s closing statement is strong because it invites the members of the jury to rectify the callous way they’ve treated Kya by believing in her innocence. Reminding them that Kya was left to her own devices as a child, Tom makes the jury members feel ashamed for not reaching out to help her survive such intense hardship. In turn, he challenges the narrative that Kya is a violent and mysterious person, effectively framing her as a tragic, resilient, and mistreated individual.
Themes
