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Chapter 14
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I’m the King of the Castle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Property and Class
Childhood
Fear and Psychological Manipulation
Imprisonment and Escape
Nature
Summary
Analysis
Edmund returns to Warings, where he must spend his time in bed. Helena tells Charles that he should spend time with Edmund, but Charles refuses. Helena tells herself that Charles is just going through a phase and that “that was the way boys behaved.”
Helena again fails to understand what’s going on with her son. She can’t recognize how frightened Charles is of Edmund, and how desperately he wants to be free of Edmund’s psychological bullying.
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In the following days, Edmund tells Charles that the doctors told him he could have died from the fall. He also brags about the gifts that Helena gave him during his time in the hospital. Charles is jealous. This surprises Charles, since “in truth [Charles] did not care very much about [his mother].”
Charles suddenly seems interested in competing with Edmund for his mother’s attention, even though he doesn’t particularly like his mother (something he hasn’t said directly until now). As Charles becomes more competitive with Edmund, it would seem, he becomes more and more like Edmund.
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Edmund tells Charles that he blames him for the fall. They argue about Edmund’s fall many times. Edmund tells Charles, “Something will happen to you. Because it was your fault and I told them, it’s what they believe.” Charles tries to remember Fielding’s advice, but in spite of himself he waits for punishment, dreading what might happen to him.
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Charles tries to sneak out of the house to find Fielding, but Helena catches him. Charles claims he’s going to buy ice cream, and she sighs and tells him to go—in the meantime, she claims, she’s going to check on Edmund.
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Feeling caught in his lie, Charles goes to buy ice cream. As he buys the ice cream, he remembers the previous night, when Edmund told him that Joseph would be paying for Charles’s school uniform. Charles remembers Helena telling him that she’s made great sacrifices to send him to school. So he knows that Edmund is right: he could only afford to go back to school with Joseph’s help.
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Suddenly, Charles sees Fielding, sitting in a big van. Fielding explains that he and his father are driving the newborn calves to the market. His father explains, dispassionately, that the calves will be made into veal. Charles wants to learn about the calves, but he’s also frightened of the “sounds and fears and smells.” And so the van drives away, and he goes back to Warings.
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Back at Warings, Edmund tells Charles that he knows about Fielding—Helena told him. He adds, “Your mother tells me lots of things about you.” Charles begins to cry—he’s lost his only secret.
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Downstairs, Helena shortens the hems on her clothes, thinking, “I am going to look younger.”
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A short while later, Joseph takes Charles and Edmund by train into London to pick up school uniforms. As they sit together, Joseph thinks that Charles is much easier to deal with than his own son—there’s nothing strange about him. He thinks of Helena and remembers, “life had taught him not to make impetuous decisions.”
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In London, Joseph points out the various sights, and Charles privately thinks that he doesn’t like being here with Joseph. In the department store, while he’s waiting to get his uniform, he contemplates running out of the store and disappearing into London. But then he decides that “there was no more hope for him.”
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Back at Warings, Edmund plays with the model fort that Charles built. Furious, Charles complains that Joseph gave his model to Edmund. As Charles yells, Joseph strikes him on the cheek. Helena sends Charles upstairs to his room. The passage ends, “He did not look at her.”
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Upstairs, Charles kicks open Edmund’s room and demands that Edmund give back the model. Instead, Edmund laughs and throws the model across the room, breaking it. As Charles bends over the model, he hears Helena tell him, “I think that you should be very, very ashamed of yourself.”
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