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Chapter 11: Friday
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Night, Mr. Tom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Biological Family vs. Chosen Family
Civilians in Wartime
Grief and Healing
Talent and Community
Religion
Summary
Analysis
In November, Tom helps out surrounding farms. All the evacuee children leave except Willie, Zach, the four children at the vicarage, and the King siblings on Hillbrook Farm. David Hartridge has become a pilot, which the villagers find thrilling. Though the war intensifies—an assassination attempt on Hitler and the invasion of Finland have recently occurred—it doesn’t seem to affect Little Weirwold, except that Miss Thorne has had to recast parts in the Christmas show that some evacuees were supposed to play.
On November 8, 1939, a German man named Johann Georg Elser planted a bomb at a beer hall in Munich where Hitler was supposed to give a speech; because Hitler left the event unexpectedly early, the assassination attempt failed, and Elser was later killed at the concentration camp Dachau. On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, which later allied with Nazi Germany. The relative remove that the villagers feel from these events—even as one of their own, David Hartridge, joins the British air force—suggests that they do not yet realize how the war may impact them as civilians.
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By early December, Willie is reading at an appropriate level for Mrs. Hartridge’s class and is writing better, though he still needs to learn arithmetic and basic units of measurement. Though Willie can read now, he still wants Tom to tell him stories and read to him, so Tom has been narrating him the entirety of Exodus and reading The Wind in the Willows to him.
That Willie still wants Tom to read to him after he learns to read shows his deepening affection for Tom. Meanwhile, Tom’s narration of Exodus and reading of The Wind and the Willows shows his both his religious liberalism in comparison to Willie’s mother—he tells Exodus like a children’s story rather than reading it directly from the Bible—and his paternal affection for Willie.
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Miss Thorne’s Christmas show is A Christmas Carol. Zach, Carrie, and George have speaking roles, Ginnie makes costumes, and Willie paints scenery. Eventually, Willie has to stand in for the usual line prompter, who has been sent to boarding school. He has soon memorized large portions of the play. One day, Carrie complains about reciting her lines to another character whose actor isn’t present. Miss Thorne asks whether the Kings are around. They aren’t, so Miss Thorne asks Willie to stand in for Christine King, telling him to imagine that he’s a “horrible old man.” Willie, remembering an old “tramp” he saw in the underground, imagines he’s that man—and acts excellently in the scene.
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After the children rehearse the scene several times, the other actors complain of fatigue—but Willie doesn’t feel tired. Zach tells him he’s a talented actor. Willie is confused: he just imagined he was someone else. He thought acting was about “playing the fool.” The rehearsals become energized, and the actors experiment more with their roles. Eventually, however, Robert King’s absence becomes a problem, and Miss Thorne calls a break so that she can phone Hillbrook Farm. When she leaves, the other children heap praise on Willie, and Lucy tries to hold his hand. Willie shrinks away, feeling uncomfortably singled out, and asks Zach to tap dance so that he can blend back into the crowd.
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Themes
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Miss Thorne reenters and announces that the Kings’ mother has taken them back to London because she believed they were being exploited for “unpaid labor.” The play no longer has an actor to play Scrooge. The children cry out anxiously, not knowing whether the show can go on. Then Miss Thorne asks Willie to play Scrooge. Everyone looks at him with hope. Silently, he nods. When Zach cheers, Miss Thorne hushes him and says that they need to get to work. Yet she tells Willie he doesn’t need to rush through things. Willie replies, “Everythin’ has its own time […]. That’s what Mister Tom ses.” Miss Thorne beams at him.
Miss Thorne, Willie, and the other actors block the entirety of Act One. Miss Thorne is surprised she didn’t think of Willie as an actor before since she has seen how quickly he can memorize poetry—but, she reflects, people usually overlook Willie. At the rehearsal’s end, Willie is excited, feeling that some new spirit has entered the words of the play. Miss Thorne and the actors are dispersing when May Thorne bursts in and announces that Mr. Bush has been called to war from the reserves—someone else will have to teach the older students.
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Themes
When Willie gets home, he notices that Tom looks distracted and asks whether he’s all right. Tom explains that since Mr. Bush has been called to war, he has been asked to play the organ and direct the choir for the concert. Willie asks whether Tom can play the organ. Tom explains that he did when Rachel was alive. When Willie asks who Rachel is, Tom explains that he loved her and she died of scarlatina after having his baby, who was also named William. Tom says he’ll have to practice the organ a lot. When he asks what book Willie is carrying, Willie says it’s A Christmas Carol—he’s in the play now. Tom says he'll make both their tea “extra sweet” that evening.
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