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
Campbell can’t make it upstairs to the conference rooms, so Anna meets him in the men’s room to talk privately. He apologizes to her about what happened, and she asks him about Judge. He explains that Judge can sense his seizures coming, which usually gives him about 20 minutes to prepare for it. Anna finds herself shy around him, even though she’s used to being around Kate’s illness. She asks if he took her case because he understands what it’s like to not have control over his body, and he concedes this might be the case—but that he also needed his doorknobs polished. Anna is reluctant to get back on the stand, but Campbell encourages her by telling her that if he can go back after his seizure, she can go back, too.
In this scene, the full truth of both Campbell and Anna’s situations have come out, allowing them to be fully honest with each other for the first time in the novel. As a result, they are able to find more common ground, specifically when it comes to bodily autonomy; as Anna points out, Campbell also understands the powerlessness that can come from lacking control over one’s body. Campbell is also able to use his epilepsy to encourage Anna, showing how his emotional vulnerability can be a boon just as much as a drawback.
Themes
Back in the courtroom, Campbell gets a refresher as to what Anna said from the transcriptionist, then asks Anna to elaborate. She confesses to the court that Kate didn’t ask her to file the suit—she asked Anna to kill her. In a flashback, Anna remembers coming into the bathroom one night to discover whiskey in the cabinet. She confronts Kate, only to see Kate holding pills. Kate tells her that she’s tired of waiting for the inevitable and ruining everyone else’s life. Anna tells her that she can’t just kill herself, and Kate tearfully says she knows this. Anna realizes that Kate has attempted suicide before.
The question of bodily autonomy is especially complicated for Kate. With both Anna and Sara’s endeavors, their focus is on the preservation of life: Anna wishes to preserve the quality of her life, while Sara wishes to preserve Kate’s life. Kate’s suicidality, however, raises the question of how much of a right someone has to end their own life, particularly if they are suffering from an illness likely to kill them eventually.
Themes
In court, Sara accuses Anna of lying, because Kate would have told her if she was that upset. Anna begins to cry and says Kate was afraid of hurting Sara by killing herself, but that Anna could always give her what she wants. In another flashback after Sara talked to the girls about the kidney transplant, Kate tells Anna not to donate her kidney. Anna asks her if she thinks the kidney transplant would work, but Kate simply looks at Anna and repeats her demand that Anna not do it. Anna realizes that Kate is asking her to let her die.
That Kate asks Anna to refuse kidney donation in order to avoid hurting Sara’s feelings reveals an important truth: while Sara’s drive to keep Kate alive has done profound harm to Anna, it has also put immense pressure on Kate to continue surviving despite the severe suffering she has to undergo in order to stay alive. In this way, Kate is revealed to feel her own sense of heavy responsibility towards Sara, just as Anna does.
Themes
Sara comes up to the stand, but Brian pulls her back. Campbell asks Anna why she was willing to take an action that would kill the sister she loves, and Anna answers that she thought it was what Kate wanted—and admits that she wanted it, too. In a flashback when the two sisters are doing dishes, Kate tries to convince Anna that, if Kate was gone, Anna would be able to live any life she wants without having to be bound to Kate. Anna is uncomfortable with how easily Kate is able to discern that, although she loves Kate, part of her wants to be free of it all.
Although the revelation of Kate’s interference in the case shifts the narrative focus to her bodily autonomy, Anna’s confession that part of her also wanted Kate to die serves as a reminder that Anna’s motivations for filing the lawsuit were not solely to help Kate. Both sisters wish to be free of their roles in the family: for Kate, this is the role of the sick daughter who constantly fights to save a live, and for Anna, it is the role of Kate’s savior.
Themes
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Anna is convinced that everyone in the courtroom thinks she’s a monster now that she’s revealed her true feelings: she wants Kate to live, but she also wants a chance to live her own life, even if it means Kate doesn’t get to grow up. She thinks about how, sometimes, she hates herself and wants to go back to doing exactly what’s expected of her. Campbell gently asks Anna why she thought Kate was ready to die. Anna answers that Kate said she was ready. Campbell suggests that Kate wanted Anna to help her so that Anna could be free. Then, Campbell asks Anna what Kate said when Anna told her she was going to stop being a donor. Kate thanked her.
Although Anna believes that everyone in the courtroom must hate her, Campbell’s gentle tone as he questions her suggests this is not remotely the case. The tragedy of her answers is that, even though Anna views herself as monstrous, she and Kate are on the exact same page: both of them understand the profound emotional burden Kate’s illness has put on all the Fitzgeralds, including Kate herself.
Themes
