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Chapter 19. Catching: The Catching
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Catching Teller Crow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Grief
Abuse of Power, Racism, and the Law
Storytelling and Truth
Time
Female Friendship
Summary
Analysis
When the Fetchers enter Catching’s room, Crow—with black hair, brown skin, and brown eyes—knocks First over and breaks Second’s mask, revealing that he has no face. Catching pulls First’s mask off and breaks it as the faceless void beneath screams for his mask’s return. Then the girls run out of the room and face down the Feed with “mirror-eyes,” who’s approaching down the hall. Though the last gray part of Catching wants to flee, she stares at the Feed instead and names the gray: “shame.” She tells him that the gray shame belongs to him, while her colors belong to her, and that she feels proud of “surviving” him. Her last piece of gray vanishes.
Catching and Crow work together to escape the Fetchers, showing the strength and ability to collaborate that their friendship has given them. The Fetchers’ facelessness and Catching’s claim that the grayness belongs to the Feed both imply that abusers are the ones who are truly numb, dead inside, and incapable of change, not their victims. By naming the last gray that she erases “shame,” Catching asserts that the Feed should be ashamed of victimizing her—but she will no longer be ashamed of being victimized. Instead, she feels pride at “surviving.”
Active
Themes
Crow bursts into a song about the Feed’s death, and the Feed runs away. When Crow and Catching corner him at the end of a tunnel, he hits the roof, wounding himself but creating a hole. When he climbs through the hole, the girls follow him into the aboveground world. Catching is stunned by the nature around her. Crow declares herself and Catching “rainbow girls” who will color and be colored by the world.
When Crow and Catching escape, color has returned to the external world. As color symbolizes positive emotions and psychological health, the return of color symbolizes that Crow and Catching’s escape is the final step in overcoming their violent trauma. Crow’s claim that she and Catching will become “rainbow girls” in dialogue with the colorful world means that the full spectrum of positive emotions is open to the girls again, as a result of their resilience and strong friendship.
Active
Themes
Catching sees a far-off light. When she and Crow approach it, they discover a locked cage containing colorful birds and the Feed, grinning. When the birds yell for help, Crow’s hair moves, forming wings and beating to create a wind that breaks the cage door. The birds fly free. As Catching and Crow enter the cage and circle the Feed, he transforms from a monster into a nervous man who no longer has mirrors for eyes because he’s lost his glasses.
Active
Themes
Catching realizes that she’s confronting the Feed not on her own behalf—not anymore—but because someone must end his behavior. She tells him that he doesn’t matter to his victims, though he wants to; in the future, he’ll just be “a bad man we once knew,” and they’ll forget about him. Abruptly, “the world explodes.”
Active
Themes
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