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Chapter 29
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
In Louisa’s younger teen years, Fish always fell for men who seemed like geniuses and made big promises, but they always disappointed her. Still, her confidence inspired Louisa, including getting Louisa to come along with her on a plan to break into a library. Louisa was amazed at how quiet the closed library was, and the two of them pretended to be in a zombie movie. Fish was a vital part of Louisa’s life, but over time, they became more separate as Fish stops going to school and made older friends who could sell her drugs. Fish wanted to escape reality. One night, a cleaner at the library found Fish lying on the floor by the fairy tales, looking asleep but having died of an overdose.
Fish’s attraction to geniuses suggests that she was always looking for something greater than her humble early life. Like other characters in the novel, she wasn’t able to find this greater thing and instead turned to addiction to deal with her feelings of dissatisfaction. The fact that Fish died in the fairy tale section of a library suggests that, like fairy tales, the drugs for her were a way of escaping reality. The uncertain circumstances of Fish’s death means that there is no way for Louisa or anyone else to know whether her death was a suicide or an accident.
Active
Themes
