Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
At the end of the week, Maddy tries to not be too giddy. Carla watches Maddy try to choose what to wear, which isn’t something Maddy has ever though about much. She only owns white tee shirts, white Keds, and blue jeans in various styles. After dressing, she wonders if white is her best color and decides to buy a T-shirt in every color to see what her best color really is. Maddy asks if Mom already left and changes her shirt for something to do. She wishes she could talk to Mom about this. She’d ask why she gets breathless and if this is how Mom felt about Maddy’s dad at the beginning. She tries to tell herself that all of this will be okay and that it’s not bad to lie to Mom like this. She tells herself that love can’t kill her.
The white shoes and T-shirts parallel the white house, and similarly connote sanitization and a lack of individual expression. In terms of her identity, Maddy is very wrapped up in the house and all it stands for (that is, her illness and her relationship with Mom). Wanting to buy clothes in other colors shows that Maddy wants to experiment with her identity and how she portrays herself to the world, something that by necessity means that she’s going to begin to separate from Mom.
Themes
