Where the Crawdads Sing

by

Delia Owens

Tate is from Barkley Cove, and is Kya’s primary romantic interest. As a boy, Tate fishes with Jodie and interacts with Kya, though Kya is too young to remember this. For this reason, she’s surprised to learn that Tate knows her name when she encounters him in the marsh after Ma, Jodie, and the rest of her siblings leave home. During this encounter, Tate helps Kya find her way home, an act of kindness that instills in her a wish to become his friend. Over the coming years, she sees him periodically in the marsh but keeps her distance. Because he admires her appreciation of nature, Tate finally makes deliberate contact with Kya when she’s 14, leaving rare feathers for her on a stump. Before long, she leaves rare artifacts for him, too, so he decides to show his face one day at the stump. A calm, polite young man, he encourages her not to run away and then offers to teach her to read. So begins their friendship, as Tate brings Kya books and spends time with her whenever he can. Soon their relationship becomes romantic, but Tate refrains from having sex with Kya because she’s still only 15, whereas he’s 19. He then informs her that he’s going to college and has accepted a job in a research lab over the summer, though he promises to visit on July 4th—a promise he fails to keep. When Tate finally does come to see Kya, he secretly watches her and is overwhelmed by the fact that she’s unlike people in the outside world. Worried she’ll never fit into the life he wants to build, he slips away. Tate later thinks this is the worst decision he’s ever made, but he can’t find a way to make it up to Kya, though he helps her publish her first book and later emotionally supports her when she’s on trial for the murder of Chase Andrews, her former boyfriend. Kya is ultimately found not guilty, and in the aftermath of the trial, she takes Tate back and they live together in the marsh for the rest of Kya’s life. After Kya’s death, however, Tate comes across Chase’s shell necklace and an Amanda Hamilton poem, “The Firefly,” which details Chase’s murder, under the floorboards of their house. He promptly disposes of this evidence, which confirms that Kya did murder Chase and that Amanda Hamilton was Kya’s secret penname. gre

Tate Quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing

The Where the Crawdads Sing quotes below are all either spoken by Tate or refer to Tate. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Survival, Necessity, and Violence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 13 Quotes

As Kya had crept closer, she saw it was a hen turkey on the ground, and the birds of her own flock were pecking and toe-scratching her neck and head. Somehow she’d managed to get her wings so tangled with briars, her feathers stuck out at strange angles and she could no longer fly. Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others—disfigured or wounded—it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take one of them in the bargain.

[…]

Kya ran into the clearing, throwing her arms around. “Hey, what ya doing? Git outta here. Stop it!” The flurry of wings kicked up more dust as the turkeys scattered into brush, two of them flying heavy into an oak. But Kya was too late.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate, Jodie
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Her impulse, as always, was to run. But there was another sensa­tion. A fullness she hadn’t felt for years. As if something warm had been poured inside her heart. She thought of the feathers, the spark plug, and the seeds. All of it might end if she ran. Without speaking, she lifted her hand and held the elegant swan feather toward him. Slowly, as though she might spring like a startled fawn, he walked over and studied it in her hand. She watched in silence, looking only at the feather, not his face, nowhere near his eyes.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

She went around reading everything—the directions on the grits bag, Tate’s notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pre­tended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom. There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters […].

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

She learned where the geese go in winter, and the meaning of their music. His soft words, sounding almost like poetry, taught her that soil is packed with life and one of the most precious riches on Earth; that draining wetlands dries the land for miles beyond, killing plants and animals along with the water. Some of the seeds lie dormant in the des­iccated earth for decades, waiting, and when the water finally comes home again, they burst through the soil, unfolding their faces. Won­ders and real-life knowledge she would’ve never learned in school. Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Kya dropped her eyes as her whole body blushed. Of course, there’d been no Ma to tell her, but indeed a school booklet Tate had brought explained some. Now her time had come, and here she was sitting on the beach becoming a woman right in front of a boy. Shame and panic filled her. What was she supposed to do? What exactly would happen? How much blood would there be? She imagined it leaking into the sand around her. She sat silent as a sharp pain racked her middle.

"Can you get yourself home?” he asked, still not looking at her.

“I think so.”

“It’ll be okay, Kya. Every girl goes through this just fine. You go on home. I’ll follow way back to make sure you get there.”

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother)
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Reading her message, the second male was convinced he’d found a willing female of his own kind and hovered above her to mate. But sud­denly the female firefly reached up, grabbed him with her mouth, and ate him, chewing all six legs and both wings.

Kya watched others. The females got what they wanted—first a mate, then a meal—just by changing their signals.

Kya knew judgment had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Related Symbols: Fireflies
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

On some level he knew she behaved this way, but since the feather game, had not witnessed the raw, unpeeled core. How tormented, iso­lated, and strange.

[…]

Kya’s mind could easily live [in the environment of a biology lab], but she could not. Breathing hard, he stared at his decision hiding there in cord grass: Kya or every­thing else.

“Kya, Kya, I just can’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

After she moved away, he got into his boat and motored back to­ward the ocean. Swearing at the coward inside who would not tell her good-bye.

Related Characters: Tate (speaker), Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark)
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

She knew from her studies that males go from one female to the next, so why had she fallen for this man? His fancy ski boat was the same as the pumped-up neck and outsized antlers of a buck deer in rut: appendages to ward off other males and attract one female after another. Yet she had fallen for the same ruse as Ma: […] sneaky fuckers.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate, Chase Andrews, Ma (Kya’s Mother)
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 57 Quotes

The Firefly

Luring him was as easy
As flashing valentines.
But like a lady firefly
They hid a secret call to die.

A final touch,
Unfinished;
The last step, a trap.
Down, down he falls,
His eyes still holding mine
Until they see another world.

I saw them change.
First a question,
Then an answer,
Finally an end.

And love itself passing
To whatever it was before it began. A.H.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate, Chase Andrews, Amanda Hamilton
Related Symbols: Fireflies
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Where the Crawdads Sing LitChart as a printable PDF.
Where the Crawdads Sing PDF

Tate Quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing

The Where the Crawdads Sing quotes below are all either spoken by Tate or refer to Tate. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Survival, Necessity, and Violence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 13 Quotes

As Kya had crept closer, she saw it was a hen turkey on the ground, and the birds of her own flock were pecking and toe-scratching her neck and head. Somehow she’d managed to get her wings so tangled with briars, her feathers stuck out at strange angles and she could no longer fly. Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others—disfigured or wounded—it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take one of them in the bargain.

[…]

Kya ran into the clearing, throwing her arms around. “Hey, what ya doing? Git outta here. Stop it!” The flurry of wings kicked up more dust as the turkeys scattered into brush, two of them flying heavy into an oak. But Kya was too late.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate, Jodie
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Her impulse, as always, was to run. But there was another sensa­tion. A fullness she hadn’t felt for years. As if something warm had been poured inside her heart. She thought of the feathers, the spark plug, and the seeds. All of it might end if she ran. Without speaking, she lifted her hand and held the elegant swan feather toward him. Slowly, as though she might spring like a startled fawn, he walked over and studied it in her hand. She watched in silence, looking only at the feather, not his face, nowhere near his eyes.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

She went around reading everything—the directions on the grits bag, Tate’s notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pre­tended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom. There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters […].

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

She learned where the geese go in winter, and the meaning of their music. His soft words, sounding almost like poetry, taught her that soil is packed with life and one of the most precious riches on Earth; that draining wetlands dries the land for miles beyond, killing plants and animals along with the water. Some of the seeds lie dormant in the des­iccated earth for decades, waiting, and when the water finally comes home again, they burst through the soil, unfolding their faces. Won­ders and real-life knowledge she would’ve never learned in school. Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Kya dropped her eyes as her whole body blushed. Of course, there’d been no Ma to tell her, but indeed a school booklet Tate had brought explained some. Now her time had come, and here she was sitting on the beach becoming a woman right in front of a boy. Shame and panic filled her. What was she supposed to do? What exactly would happen? How much blood would there be? She imagined it leaking into the sand around her. She sat silent as a sharp pain racked her middle.

"Can you get yourself home?” he asked, still not looking at her.

“I think so.”

“It’ll be okay, Kya. Every girl goes through this just fine. You go on home. I’ll follow way back to make sure you get there.”

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother)
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Reading her message, the second male was convinced he’d found a willing female of his own kind and hovered above her to mate. But sud­denly the female firefly reached up, grabbed him with her mouth, and ate him, chewing all six legs and both wings.

Kya watched others. The females got what they wanted—first a mate, then a meal—just by changing their signals.

Kya knew judgment had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Related Symbols: Fireflies
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

On some level he knew she behaved this way, but since the feather game, had not witnessed the raw, unpeeled core. How tormented, iso­lated, and strange.

[…]

Kya’s mind could easily live [in the environment of a biology lab], but she could not. Breathing hard, he stared at his decision hiding there in cord grass: Kya or every­thing else.

“Kya, Kya, I just can’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

After she moved away, he got into his boat and motored back to­ward the ocean. Swearing at the coward inside who would not tell her good-bye.

Related Characters: Tate (speaker), Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark)
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

She knew from her studies that males go from one female to the next, so why had she fallen for this man? His fancy ski boat was the same as the pumped-up neck and outsized antlers of a buck deer in rut: appendages to ward off other males and attract one female after another. Yet she had fallen for the same ruse as Ma: […] sneaky fuckers.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate, Chase Andrews, Ma (Kya’s Mother)
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 57 Quotes

The Firefly

Luring him was as easy
As flashing valentines.
But like a lady firefly
They hid a secret call to die.

A final touch,
Unfinished;
The last step, a trap.
Down, down he falls,
His eyes still holding mine
Until they see another world.

I saw them change.
First a question,
Then an answer,
Finally an end.

And love itself passing
To whatever it was before it began. A.H.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate, Chase Andrews, Amanda Hamilton
Related Symbols: Fireflies
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis: