Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Sister’s Keeper, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Bodily Autonomy
Siblinghood
Parenthood
Control
Illness and Isolation
Summary
Analysis
Having just taken the witness stand, Anna is afraid of saying too much. She looks at her parents and thinks of sitting back down, but then she sees Campbell, who is sweating and has dilated pupils. He comes up to confer with her and leans in to tell her he had a friend named Joseph Balz as a kid, and he points out how funny it would be if Dr. Neaux married him. He backs away while she’s still smiling. Judge is extremely agitated; Campbell tells him to calm down and begins questioning Anna. He asks her why she wants to file her petition, and Anna says: “She asked.” When Campbell asks for clarification, she says that Sara asked for her kidney—but Anna knows she’s not being fully honest.
Anna’s noticing that Campbell doesn’t look well, as well as Campbell telling Anna a joke to help calm her nerves up on the stand, show how Anna and Campbell have come to care for each other beyond their professional relationship. However, Anna’s response to Campbell’s question and her admission that she’s not being honest suggests that she is still holding something back. Given the brevity of her response, it’s likely that the “she” in her answer was not actually Sara.
Themes
In a flashback to two months earlier, shortly after Kate is diagnosed with kidney failure, Sara and Brian come into the girls’ room. Sara tells Kate that she’s been talking to Dr. Chance about a kidney transplant, and that he won’t recommend the procedure unless the kidney comes from Anna. Brian points out that this is an invasive surgery, and Anna internally worries about the effect losing a kidney would have on her life. Kate responds first, saying she’s sick of the whole thing and wants to be left alone. Sara, infuriated, tells her that she can go ahead and die by suicide, then. Kate says that “it’s not suicide […] if you’re already dying.”
Throughout the novel, there have only been a few moments where Kate has been shown to express her feelings about her treatment. This flashback suggests that, although Sara is determined to save Kate at all costs, Kate does not feel the same way, but in fact is growing tired of undergoing her treatments, especially when said treatments put Anna in a difficult position. Her feelings suggest that Sara has been ignoring her desires as well as Anna’s.
Themes
Campbell asks Anna if she ever told anyone she didn’t want to be a donor. Judge is running all around the courtroom, causing Judge DeSalvo to threaten to remove him, but Campbell ignores both, focusing on Anna. He asks her if she decided to file this lawsuit all by herself. Anna knows he wants her to say yes and prove that she’s capable of making decisions on her own, but she confesses that someone did convince her: Kate. Before anyone in the courtroom can react to this revelation, Campbell collapses.
Anna’s revelation that Kate asked her to file the lawsuit recontextualizes everything that has happened so far. In addition to being about Anna’s bodily autonomy, this case is also about Kate’s bodily autonomy—which revolves not around her desire to live, but around her desire to let go. Campbell’s mysterious collapse also mirrors the dramatic turn in the case.
Themes
