Theme Analysis
The theme explored in the below quote.
“Jonas and I will see to it that no spider ever comes near you. Oh, Constance,” I said, “we are so happy.”
What is... Female Power?
The food that the arsenic was planted in.
What is... sugar?
"I wished they were dead. I would have liked to come into the grocery store some morning and see them all, even the Elberts and the children, lying there crying with the pain and dying."
Who is... Merricat?
The fun quote that can be used to remember paragraph structure.
What is... The Autistic Elephant Is Angrily Eating In Africa?
The definition of a symbol.
What is... an object that represents a greater or more complex idea in a text?
The theme explored in the below quote.
"One of our mother’s Dresden figurines is broken, I thought, and I said aloud to Constance, “I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die.”
Constance stirred, and the leaves rustled. “The way you did before?” she asked."
What is... Guilt and Punishment?
At least one of the strange "magical" techniques that Merricat uses to keep the Blackwood family safe.
What is... nailing a watch to a tree, coming up with 3 magical words, burying books, keeping a "familiar" in a cat, etc.
"We should have faced the world and tried to live normal lives; Uncle Julian should have been in a hospital all these years, with good care and nurses to watch him."
Who is... Constance?
The T in TAEIAEIA.
What is... Topic Sentence?
What the moon represents in the novel and one example of how.
What is... Isolation/Safety/Refuge?
The theme explored in the below quote.
"All the Blackwood women had taken the food that came from the ground and preserved it, and the deeply colored rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit, maroon and amber and dark rich green, stood side by side in our cellar and would stand there forever, a poem by the Blackwood women."
The couple that are seemingly the only nice villagers to the Blackwood sisters.
Who are... Helen and Jim Clarke?
“Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”
Who are... the schoolchildren?
The first (and second) A in TAEIAEIA.
What is... Argument?
What food represents in the novel and one example of how.
What is... Female Power?
The quote explored in the below quote.
“I am so happy,” Constance said at last, gasping. “Merricat, I am so happy.”
“I told you that you would like it on the moon.”
How the housefire initiates.
What is... Merricat purposefully drops Charles' pipe?
“My niece Mary Katherine has been a long time dead, young man. She did not survive the loss of her family; I supposed you knew that.”
Who is... Uncle Julian?
The I in TAEIAEIA.
What is... Inference?
What Merricat's and Constance's attitudes towards their father's safe represents.
What is... a disregard for the capitalist world around them?
The theme explored in the below quote.
“I really think I shall commence chapter forty-four,” he said, patting his hands together. “I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie.”
What is... Truth?
How Merricat and Constance transgress the social norms placed upon them by the end of the novel.
What is... avoid the villagers and isolate complete and/or dressing in tableclothes and hand-made clothes?
“One of the links is smashed.... what a hell of a way to treat a valuable thing. We could have sold it."
Who is... Charles Blackwood?
The final A in TAEIAEIA.
What is... Author Intention?
The significance of the Blackwood sister's mother's teacups surviving the housefire.
What is... the final victory of the Blackwood women?