Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Eleanor and Park, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Adolescence and Shame
Love and Intimacy
Poverty and Class
Family and Abuse
Summary
Analysis
On Christmas Day, Eleanor sleeps until noon. Sabrina comes in to wake her up, but apologizes when she sees that Eleanor looks like she’s caught a cold. Sabrina tells Eleanor that she’ll try to get Richie to change his mind about Minnesota. Eleanor insists she doesn’t want to go anyway. Sabrina leaves the room, and Eleanor pretends to go back to sleep.
Even on a family holiday, Eleanor tries to retreat into herself and spend the day in solitude. She wants to remain wrapped up in her thoughts of Park rather than focus on her and her family’s bleak reality.
Themes
Park, too, sleeps late on Christmas Day. Josh comes into his room to wake him up, and together they go downstairs to open presents. Park gets clothes, gift cards, cologne, and an empty key ring—but Park hardly cares about getting a license anymore, given how much he loves taking the bus with Eleanor each day.
Park’s family’s Christmas is luxurious and privileged, drawing a sharp contrast between his reality and Eleanor’s. Nonetheless, his thoughts wander continually to Eleanor.
Themes
Park thinks about his conversation with Eleanor last night—for the first time, she began telling him a little about her home life, her siblings, and Richie’s reign of terror. Park hadn’t wanted to come back inside, even with the bitter cold pressing down on them.
Park loves being around Eleanor and always wants to hear what she has to say. Even when the things they discuss are difficult or uncomfortable, being with her is his favorite thing.
Themes
Back at Eleanor’s house, Eleanor—who has found that she really is getting a cold—comes out of her room for Christmas dinner. It is the most luxurious meal their family has had in a while—turkey, potatoes, rice pudding, and special Danish cookies. In spite of the rich meal, when it comes time for dessert, there is no pumpkin pie—a fact that sends the intoxicated Richie flying into a rage. He berates Sabrina for cooking a subpar meal, and throws the bowl of rice pudding at the wall before unsteadily lurching from the house to go buy some pie. After he leaves, Sabrina scrapes the top layer of pudding off the floor and serves it to Eleanor and her siblings.
This passage shows that Richie’s desire to humiliate and control Sabrina and her children is so profound that he would even go so far as to ruin their Christmas and waste their short supply of food in order to assert his power over them all. Nevertheless, Sabrina tries to keep her children happy and fed, but it’s clear that her resolve has taken a huge blow.
Themes
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