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
Maddy feels like the universe and her subconscious are conspiring against her: she and Mom are playing Phonetic Scrabble and Maddy is winning for the first time ever by playing words that sound like “outside,” “freedom,” and “secrets.” Mom studies Maddy’s face and Maddy feels guilty and selfish. She wants to be with Olly and feels herself becoming someone new whenever she’s around him. Mom asks Maddy what’s going on but before Maddy can lie, they hear a scream, yelling, and a slam from outside. When they hear someone scream “stop,” they run to the window. Olly, Olly’s mom, and Olly’s dad are outside. Olly’s dad drinks and tells Olly’s mom to take the glass, but Olly won’t let her. As Olly’s mom steps forward, Olly’s dad grabs at her.
That this abuse is taking place outside, not just behind closed doors, speaks to how confident Olly’s dad feels that nobody is going to step in and stop things. He’s secure in the knowledge that his family members can’t stop him, and the neighbors won’t step in either. This is one of the main reasons why he can continue to behave this way: even Olly standing up to his dad won’t enough to show him that this kind of behavior won’t be tolerated.
Themes
Olly separates his parents and tries to draw Olly’s dad’s attention away from Olly’s mom. It works, and as Olly’s dad punches at Olly, he falls off the steps and lands in a sprawl. Everyone waits for him to move and Olly’s mom moves down to her husband. Olly’s dad grabs his wife’s hand and hauls himself up. As Olly rushes in to separate them again, his dad punches him twice in the stomach. Maddy and Olly’s mom scream, and before Maddy knows what she’s doing, she races outside and screams at Olly’s dad to stop. It startles him enough to make him go inside. Olly looks pained, but as Mom grabs Maddy’s arm, he fearfully tells her to go back inside.
That Maddy screaming at Olly’s dad makes him stop shows that if someone else in the neighborhood were willing to intervene, things may improve at Olly’s house—or at least, the abuse would stop taking place on the front lawn. Maddy’s relationship with Olly is, at this point, strong enough to overpower any sense she has for her own safety, hence why she’s able to leave the house without thinking to rush to Olly’s defense. In this sense, Olly is truly helping Maddy to separate from the house and her mother’s control.
Themes
Inside, Maddy insists that she’s fine and dodges Mom’s question of why she’d go outside to help a stranger. Mom realizes that Olly isn’t a stranger as Maddy starts to shake, aware of what she did. Mom makes her shower and throws out her clothes. Maddy apologizes, but Mom asks how she could do this. Maddy isn’t sure if she’s talking about the lying or going outside, but she can’t answer either way. Maddy goes upstairs and doesn’t see Olly outside. She thinks that she doesn’t remember what it was like to be outside, but she remembers the sight of Olly in pain and him telling her to go back.
Mom’s controlling behavior looks less sinister here exactly because Maddy legitimately put herself in danger by going outside. In this sense, it seems that the more Maddy branches out and take risks, the more Mom will try to maintain her grip on Maddy. Maddy’s focus on her memories of Olly outside show that she has truly shifted her thinking, and now she recognizes that life outside isn’t just the inanimate world—it’s the people in it that make it worth experiencing.
Themes
