Secrecy and Shame Theme Analysis

Both Monday and Claudia’s lives are marked by huge secrets that they perceive to be extremely shameful. Monday lives in an abusive household and doesn’t feel like she can tell anyone about the situation at home—she’s not only ashamed, she’s also afraid that social services might separate her and her siblings if they were to be placed in foster care. Claudia, meanwhile, has trouble reading and writing and seems to know that her troubles are related to dyslexia. Monday is the only person who knows about Claudia’s learning difficulties, but they keep this a secret so that Claudia won’t end up “in the stupid kids’ class” or won’t be able to accompany Monday to one of the most prestigious high schools in Washington, D.C. By exploring how these two secrets impact Claudia and Monday’s lives, Monday’s Not Coming suggests that secrets—and the shame they create—can keep kids from getting the help they need.

Both Monday and Claudia see their respective secrets as an absolute necessity. Claudia’s reasoning is simple: if people were to find out she has dyslexia, she wouldn’t just have to suffer through “the stupid kids’ class” (i.e.,  the Learning Center where kids with learning disabilities get extra help at school). She’d also be in a different class than Monday, and given how close the girls’ friendship is, being separated from one another is simply unthinkable. The only way for the girls to stick together and protect each other from the bullying they suffer is to keep Claudia’s difficulties with reading a secret.

Monday takes much the same view as Claudia does when it comes to the secret that Mrs. Charles is neglecting and abusing Monday and her siblings. Monday fears that if adults with authority were to find out, she and her siblings would be removed from the house and put into foster care—not necessarily together. And this fear is well-founded: April explains to Claudia at one point that when the siblings were temporarily removed from the house a while back, they were split up among three different living situations. And to make matters worse, Tuesday, who was a toddler at the time, was at risk of being adopted and then gone forever. From Monday’s perspective, it’s preferable to stay with Mrs. Charles with her siblings and where she’s guaranteed to not have to leave Claudia than it is to turn her life upside down by revealing her secret.

Aside from the girls’ practical reasoning, it’s their paralyzing sense of shame that motivates both of them to keep their secrets. Claudia, for instance, is deeply embarrassed about her dyslexia. In her understanding (and in Monday’s as well), having trouble reading makes her “stupid.” If she admits she has a problem and needs help—even if doing so might help her overcome her dyslexia—Claudia believes she’ll be accepting that she’s inferior and, therefore, deserves her classmates’ bullying. This is why, when Claudia is finally diagnosed with dyslexia, she takes a long, winding path to the Learning Center to try to prevent her classmates from finding out that she receives tutoring. And it’s not long after Monday’s death that Claudia realizes that Monday also harbored feelings of shame. April, Monday’s older sister, shares that Monday didn’t let Claudia in on the abuse and neglect she was suffering from at home because she didn’t want Claudia to pity her. The abuse, in other words, was the lesser of two evils in Monday’s mind—she’d rather suffer in silence than have Claudia pity her.

In both girls’ situations, Monday’s Not Coming shows that secrecy and shame keep people from getting the help they need—sometimes, with deadly consequences. When they’re finally told about Claudia’s dyslexia, Ma and Daddy are appalled that it took until Claudia was 13, in eighth grade, and preparing to apply for competitive high schools before her dyslexia was identified. In effect, Claudia has by this point lost out on years’ worth of education: Monday did all of Claudia’s homework and reading for her, so Claudia never had to work through the material herself. And though Ma and Daddy suggest that this is in part the school’s fault for not paying closer attention and identifying the problem earlier, Claudia’s shame meant that she also took careful, calculated steps to obscure her troubles from those who could’ve helped her.

Ultimately, though Claudia is eventually forced to reveal her secret and grapple with the shame, the novel shows that it’s actually a positive thing to be able to overcome one’s shame—but this isn’t a privilege afforded to everyone. Indeed, though the novel doesn’t blame Monday for her mother’s actions, the fact remains that because Monday felt that Mrs. Charles’s abuse and neglect was something to be ashamed of, she kept it under wraps and never felt comfortable asking for help. And not getting help when Monday had the chance ultimately created the circumstances where Mrs. Charles was able to murder her daughter.

With this, Monday’s Not Coming suggests that it’s imperative to dismantle harmful narratives about what’s considered shameful. As Claudia’s friends and family tell her over and over again, dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of—it doesn’t make her any less intelligent than anyone else, it just means she needs a little extra help. Similarly, the novel implies that, had someone been able to impress upon Monday that being a victim of abuse isn’t something she needed to be ashamed of, Monday’s murder might have been prevented. Creating environments where it’s not shameful to talk about one’s troubles or trauma, the novel suggests, might save another child from grappling with these problems alone.