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Chapter 54
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
Jodie tells Kya on their way back that she’ll soon be fine, adding that she just needs time to recover. As Jodie speaks, Kya wishes he would be quiet so she could listen to the sounds of nature out the window. When Kya goes to the beach for the first time, the gulls encircle her, and she wonders if now people will finally leave her alone to live her life. When she walks back to her shack, she finds that Jodie is still there. He wants to talk to her, but she says that she wants to be alone, reminding him that he has lived alone for almost her entire life. Now, Kya says, she knows once and for all that everyone is “against” her. Hearing this, Jodie urges her not to begrudge people, but she points out that nobody has ever treated her well.
Although the people of Barkley Cove—or, at least, the jury members—have just proven that they’re somewhat sympathetic toward Kya, she is unwilling to forget the mere fact that she had to go to court to prove her innocence in the first place. This, Kya thinks, is a perfect representation of the ways in which others distrust her simply because of her alternative and reclusive lifestyle. Instead of seeing this experience as proof that people aren’t as “against” her as she might have thought, then, she sees it as proof that she was right all along to want nothing to do with public life.
Themes
Jodie finally leaves, though not before making Kya a chicken pot pie and leaving it on the stove. Once alone, Kya feels sorry for being so harsh to Jodie, finding it hard to understand why she’s suddenly so angry at the world. The next morning, she decides to spend the entire day in the marsh, collecting whatever she finds. On another level, she hopes to see Tate, whom she decides she’ll invite over to eat the chicken pot pie. Meanwhile, Tate makes his way into the marsh in the hopes of seeing Kya. He doesn’t know what he’ll tell her, but he’s determined to make her see that they should be together.
Kya’s trial has only emphasized to her that she can’t trust other people. However, this isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to Tate—after all, she told him in their last conversation that he should forget about her, but now she wants to invite him over to eat chicken pot pie. In this way, then, Kya has apparently embraced the idea of letting Tate back into her life, perhaps because she recognized during the trial how devoted he is to her.
Themes
Finally, Kya spies Tate from afar, but just as she’s about to approach, she sees Sheriff Jackson and two other men pull up to his boat and shout something at him. After a moment, Tate drops his head and gets in the sheriff’s boat, which speeds off in the other direction. As she watches this, Kya is distraught, finally admitting that the chance of seeing Tate has always been a large part of why she ventures into the marsh. For years, she has thought that a person can’t get hurt if she loves someone from afar, but now she wonders if this is untrue.
When Sheriff Jackson pulls up to Tate’s boat and tells him to get in, readers are invited to wonder if perhaps Tate was the one to have killed Chase. This would make a certain amount of sense, given that he owned the red hat that matched the fibers on Chase’s coat, in addition to the fact that Tate knew Chase hurt Kya and therefore probably wanted to take revenge. Regardless of what happened, though, the most notable aspect of this scene is that watching Tate get into the sheriff’s boat forces Kya to finally realize just how strongly she feels for him, admitting to herself that he’s an integral part of her life.
Themes
