Sixth-grader Claudia Kincaid, the protagonist of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, decides to run away from her monotonous suburban life to glamorous New York City. From the start, the narrator (Mrs. Frankweiler) observes that Claudia is simply tired of being “straight-A’s Claudia Kincaid.” Indeed, Claudia mostly thinks of running away as payback for her parents’ expectations of her as the eldest sibling, finding these unfair. After she and her brother Jamie begin hiding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, however, Claudia starts to forget about her childish reasons for running away. Claudia becomes obsessed with the Angel statue, a new museum acquisition, because it might have been carved by Michelangelo, but nobody knows for sure. Claudia feels she can’t go home to “the same old thing” until she knows the truth about the sculpture’s origins. Eventually, she realizes that what she’s longing for is not simply independence from her parents, but a “way to be different.” She senses that, somehow, the mystery of the angel statue is a key to helping her become “different.” Only once she finds proof that Michelangelo carved Angel does Claudia feel she can go home “different.” Even if life at home is “the same old thing,” she’s no longer the same person. Later, Mrs. Frankweiler remarks that understanding the adventure’s true value will mean that Claudia is “tiptoeing into the grown-up world.” Though the novel doesn’t directly name the adventure’s value, it suggests that growing up doesn’t mean rejecting responsibility, but being brave enough to seek answers about the world and, in doing so, becoming connected to something bigger than oneself.
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Growing Up Quotes in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn’t like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. To a large place, a comfortable place, an indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place. And that’s why she decided upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
She was the oldest child and the only girl and was subject to a lot of injustice. Perhaps it was because she had to both empty the dishwasher and set the table on the same night while her brothers got out of everything. And, perhaps, there was another reason more clear to me than to Claudia. A reason that had to do with the sameness of each and every week. She was bored with simply being straight-A’s Claudia Kincaid. She was tired of arguing about whose turn it was to choose the Sunday night seven-thirty television show, of injustice, and of the monotony of everything.
And in the course of those miles Claudia stopped regretting bringing Jamie along. In fact when they emerged from the train at Grand Central into the underworld of cement and steel that leads to the terminal, Claudia felt that having Jamie there was important. […] And his money and radio were not the only reasons. Manhattan called for the courage of at least two Kincaids.
“A museum spokesman said yesterday, ‘Whether or not conclusive proof will be found that this was the work of Michelangelo, we are pleased with our purchase.’ Although Michelangelo Buonarroti is perhaps best known for his paintings of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, he always considered himself a sculptor, and primarily a sculptor of marble. The question of whether the museum has acquired one of his lesser known masterpieces still awaits a final answer.”
Claudia didn’t think about their close calls. They were unimportant; they wouldn’t matter in the end, the end having something to do with Michelangelo, Angel, history, and herself.
Thus, when the tour was finished, Claudia was no expert on the United Nations, but she had discovered something: saris are a way of being different. She could do two things, she decided. When she was grown, she could stay the way she was and move to some place like India where no one dressed as she did, or she could dress like someone else—the Indian guide even—and still live in an ordinary place like Greenwich.
“Yes,” Claudia sighed. “Just a week. I feel as if I jumped into a lake to rescue a boy, and what I thought was a boy turned out to be a wet, fat log. Some heroine that makes. All wet for nothing.” The tears flowed again.
“You sure are getting wet. You started this adventure just running away. Comfortably. Then the day before yesterday you decided you had to be a hero, too.”
“Heroine. And how should I have known that I wanted to be a heroine when I had no idea I wanted to be a heroine? The statue just gave me a chance … almost gave me a chance. We need to make more of a discovery.”
“If only you’d tell me if the statue was done by Michelangelo. Then I would feel that I could go home again.”
“Why would that make a difference?” I asked.
“It would because … because …”
“Because you found that running away from home didn’t make a real difference? You were still the same Greenwich Claudia, planning and washing and keeping things in order?”
“I guess that’s right,” Claudia said quietly.
“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It’s the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don’t pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”
I was glad that I wasn’t dealing with a stupid child. I admired her spirit; but more, I wanted to help her see the value of her adventure. She still saw it as buying her something: appreciation first, information now. Nevertheless, Claudia was tiptoeing into the grown-up world. And I decided to give her a little shove. “Claudia. James. Both of you. Come with me.”
The other side of the paper needed no translation. For there, in the midst of sketches of hands and torsos was a sketch of someone they knew: Angel. There were the first lines of a thought that was to become a museum mystery 470 years later. There on that piece of old paper was the idea just as it had come from Michelangelo’s head to his hand, and he had jotted it down.
Claudia looked at the sketch until its image became blurred. She was crying.
“Returning with a secret is what she really wants. Angel had a secret and that made her exciting, important. Claudia doesn’t want adventure. She likes baths and feeling comfortable too much for that kind of thing. Secrets are the kind of adventure she needs. Secrets are safe, and they do much to make you different. On the inside where it counts.”
Claudia said, “But, Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did even at the museum.”
“No,” I answered, “I don’t agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow.”
