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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lyddie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Bravery, Endurance, and Hope
Labor, Enslavement, and Racial Prejudice
Biological Family vs. Found Family
Written Language and Power
Gender Inequality
Summary
Analysis
“The bear had been their undoing,” Lyddie Worthen reflects, “though at the time they had all laughed.” Lyddie thinks back to November of 1843, when a bear crawls into the farmhouse she shares with Mama and three younger siblings: 10-year-old Charlie, 6-year-old Rachel, and baby Agnes. Calmly, Lyddie directs the younger children and Mama to climb up the ladder to the house’s loft, while she stares down the bear.
Immediately, Lyddie emerges—even as a young teenager—as the de facto head of her family, responsible for her siblings’ safety (and for her mother’s). On the one hand, then, it is clear that Lyddie’s bravery will be a focal point of the novel, as signaled by her calm ability to stare down the bear and her willingness to laugh in the face of fear. On the other hand, however, the bear himself will become an essential symbol of all the terrors (in many forms) that lie ahead for Lyddie.
Active
Themes
After everyone else is safe, Lyddie climbs backwards to the loft, never taking her eyes off the bear. Only when she’s up does Lyddie break eye contact, which sends the bear into a frenzy. The bear initially tries to climb up into the attic; then, he smells the oatmeal on the stove, and he knocks the kettle onto his head in his rush to get to the food. The hot oatmeal burns the bear, and he starts flailing. Through it all, Lyddie comforts her siblings, even though she herself fears the bear.
In order to protect her siblings and calm the bear, Lyddie has to tamp down her own feelings, hardening herself to get through tough circumstances. But while this hardening can protect Lyddie in moments of crisis, this moment also foreshadows the detachment Lyddie will eventually feel from her loved ones and from her own internal emotions.
Active
Themes
Finally, having exhausted himself, the bear crashes out of the house, tearing the door off its hinges. Once the family hears the bear go into the woods, Rachel bursts into laughter. Agnes joins her, and soon all the children are cracking up; Lyddie even jokes that the bear was scared of her because she was “ugly.”
Active
Themes
Lyddie sees that her mother’s shoulders are shaking, too—“let her be laughing,” Lyddie prays. But instead, Mama collapses, believing that the bear is a sign of the devil, and that end times are approaching. Mama decides that the next day she will bring all of the children to their aunt Clarissa’s house. Clarissa and her husband Judah are convinced that the end of the world is near, so Mama wants to “be with the faithful when the end comes.” Besides, Mama knows it’s either Aunt Clarissa’s or the poor-farm.
Active
Themes
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The next day, Mama packs up to go, but Lyddie and Charlie refuse to come with her. Lyddie points out that they do not have enough money for the whole family to make the journey; besides, if Lyddie doesn’t stay behind, how will their father (who left to go find fortune) know where to go if he returns? Mama thinks this is foolish, but she allows Lyddie and Charlie to stay anyway. Mama instructs Lyddie to lean on their neighbor Quaker Stevens and his son Luke, just down the hill, though Lyddie is too proud to ever ask for help.
Active
Themes
Charlie is small for his age, but he and Lyddie work hard, and together they are able to make it through the winter. With the help of Quaker Stevens’s bull, the family’s cow gives birth to a healthy calf, and by spring, everything is looking up—until Lyddie gets a letter from Mama. The words are misspelled, but the message is clear: in order to pay off the family’s debts, Mama has hired Lyddie and Charlie out, Lyddie to the local tavern and Charlie to the mill.
Active
Themes
Lyddie bursts into tears. To comfort her, Charlie points out a typo in the letter—“the world have not come to the end yit,” Mama has written, “but we can still hop.” Even though Lyddie hates the idea of being separated from her brother and her beloved farm, Charlie assures her, “we can still hop.”
