Previous
Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Friends, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
The Value of Art
Loss and Grief
Substance Abuse
Summary
Analysis
Louisa listens to a woman complaining about “new money” people at the auction. Everyone is so involved in their own conversations that they don’t notice when Louisa opens her backpack, takes out one of the spray paint cans, and points it toward C. Jat’s The One of the Sea. But when a woman stops her to ask what she’s doing, Louisa decides to change her plan. She starts crying that the painting isn’t actually a painting of the sea. Louisa whispers to herself that the woman trying to stop her is just a “vulgar new-money social climber” if she thinks the painting is actually the sea. The woman calls for backup, realizing that Louisa is an activist with the spray paint, and she tries to get Louisa kicked out.
“New money” refers to people who didn’t inherit wealth but instead came into it recently. It often carries a negative stereotype, suggesting a lack of refinement. Louisa shows that even though she is an outsider, she is able to pick up on the way people at the auction talk and use this to her advantage. Even though these people are wealthy, they are insecure about their status. This mentality contrasts with Louisa herself, who is self-confident but has a precarious living situation in a group foster home.
Active
Themes
Louisa turns and draws a fish on the wall with red pen. A large guard comes over before she can get away. Louisa doesn’t like when adults touch her, since she doesn’t trust adults. Her dad left before she was born. Meanwhile, her mom raised her until she was five, but then one day, she dropped Louisa off with the neighbors and disappeared. From then on, she grew up in foster homes, moving between them. When she was six or seven, she was in a foster home where on the fridge there was a beautiful postcard of the sea, a replica of the C. Jat painting. Louisa took it, and it became the first thing she ever stole. It’s now the one in her backpack with the note written on it.
Louisa’s fear of being touched by adults hints that she doesn’t have many trustworthy adults in her life. As this passage reveals, both of her parents have been absent from her life for many years. The lack of parental figures in her life has forced Louisa to become more independent at an earlier age, but it has also made it more difficult to open up to new people in her life. This inability to trust people perhaps explains why she has formed an attachment to the painting: its serene beauty might offer an escape from an otherwise difficult and lonely life.
Active
Themes
As kids in a foster home, Louisa and Fish used to sneak into movies to learn how to speak English like American movie stars. One day, Louisa got the news that her mom died of alcohol poisoning. The police officer who told her tried to explain it as drowning from the inside. From then on, Louisa was afraid of swimming. She had a powerful imagination, and eventually she wrote the message “See you soon. —Mom” on the postcard herself.
