Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Nine Days, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Unconventional Family Structure
First Impressions, Perspective, and Personal Growth
Gender, Stigma, and Shame
Mothers and Sons
The Far-Reaching Effects of War
Summary
Analysis
As Charlotte is teaching a morning yoga class to corporate workers, she feels an extra weight in her abdomen, which she’d also noticed the night before. As she looks at her students, she hopes this morning yoga will make them kinder in their daily work, though the one time she admitted this hope to Stanzi, Stanzi plainly doubted it. After yoga, her body feels more aligned, but the foreign weight is still there. She walks to the tram station, noticing a seagull with a piece of fishing line wrapped around its leg, nearly severing its foot. This causes her to reflect that “We humans fuck everything up.” Charlotte knows the bird is crippled but also knows she can do nothing about it, and the powerlessness of it all makes her want to cry. But as she rides the tram through a park, she feels as if the park smiles at her.
Especially compared to Stanzi and her general cynicism, Charlotte is characterized immediately as eccentric, but overwhelmingly compassionate, especially toward animals or people whom society has mistreated. Her hope that morning yoga will improve the behavior of businesspeople—the epitome of mainstream “society”—also suggests that she tends towards optimism, even unrealistically. Although this narrative takes place years before Stanzi’s, Charlotte’s fitness and general awareness of her body again set her apart from her sister, making them as different from each other as Kip is to Francis.
Themes
Charlotte goes to her other job at a shop selling naturopathic remedies, where she sees Craig already there, opening for the day. Craig’s appearance and demeanor seem immediately childish to her. He pouts, bitter that Charlotte did not show up at the bar last night to watch his band play, even when she says she needed a quiet night. In her head, Charlotte thinks this hardly matters. Craig’s band plays in bars every week and its hardly an event—the bar only pays the band $10, a meal, and some beer. But all the other band member’s girlfriends come every night. Charlotte wants to calm him down, rub his shoulders and maybe burn some oil. She tries to kiss Craig, but he ignores her. Charlotte shrugs, blaming his behavior on the fact that he is a Scorpio.
Charlotte’s relationship with a man she obviously thinks quite little of also suggests that she is not one to proactively make decisions or make the most of her life. This is reinforced by her easy dismissal of Craig and his poor behavior, especially since she blames his astrological sign for it. Rather than seeking to change Craig’s mind or demand that he behave like a mature adult, Charlotte simply blames fate and goes about her day, apparently unhindered by Craig’s irritation but also passively accepting of it.
Themes
While Craig and Charlotte are sorting invoices and deliveries, a wealthy woman comes into the store, pushing her young daughter in a stroller. Craig tells Charlotte that she needs to handle this one; Craig knows all about naturopathy and even how to treat women’s menstrual issues, but he cannot handle children. The woman says that her daughter keeps getting colds and needs something to strengthen her immune system. Charlotte tries to speak to the little girl, whom she finds out is also named Charlotte, but the girl does not respond. The woman is embarrassed, unsure of whether to yell at her child and appear domineering or let it slide and appear weak.
Craig’s refusal to have anything to do with children suggests that he would make a poor father if ever the time came. Meanwhile, the wealthy woman’s consternation suggests that she feels inadequate to some degree as a mother, plagued by the difficult role. Although social conditions for women are better than in Jean’s day, the difficulties the wealthy woman feels as a mother will parallel many of the pressures that Jean feels herself, half a century earlier.
Themes
After the woman tells Charlotte that her daughter is named after Charlotte Bronte—though she doesn’t seem to confidently know which books Bronte wrote—Charlotte reveals that she was named after her father’s best friend Charlie. The woman asks if her daughter needs a tonic, but Charlotte tells her that judging by the girl’s itchy nose, she just needs less wheat and dairy in her diet, and explains about the chemicals used in modern food production. The woman remarks that it seems so difficult to raise a child in the modern world, especially since her daughter will only eat cheese sticks and junk food. When Charlotte gives the woman a box of organic cereal, the woman asks if there’s a toy in the box.
Although the wealthy woman seems to want to help her daughter and decries the effects of modern food, by asking if the organic cereal box has a toy in it, she reveals that she is still beholden to modern conveniences. Although the wealthy woman does not struggle with poverty and simply keeping her children alive, as Jean did, she still struggles with the pressure of motherhood and knowing how to best care for her child, suggesting that many of the pressures that women feel are timeless, present from era to era.
Themes
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When the woman leaves with the box of cereal, Craig criticizes Charlotte for spending so much time with her and only selling one item. Craig criticizes the woman, too, for being part of the “bourgeois,” and thinks she’ll probably just throw away what she bought, anyway. However, Charlotte has sympathy for her as a mother. When she says that motherhood is “the most important job in the world,” Craig flatly disagrees. In his mind, having children is just the consequence of sex, and children are only a way for the middle-class to “clone themselves, desperate to feed their own ego.” Charlotte disagrees, especially since it’s spring and the “time for rebirth.” She decides she feels ill, tells Craig to man the shop on his own, and leaves, figuring he’ll be annoyed but get over it by tomorrow.
Charlotte’s spending so much time with one person to sell a single small item suggests that she values people over money. Craig’s cynicism completely defies Charlotte’s optimism, further suggesting that they make a terrible couple together and have an unfulfilling relationship. Furthermore, Craig seems to see no possible value at all in motherhood or raising children, cynically viewing it as an egoistic move or useless consequence of sex. This attitude once again suggesting that he would make a pitiful, inadequate father if ever the circumstances should arise.
Themes
Charlotte goes home, lights a candle and incense, and strips naked to look at herself in the mirror. She reflects that the “female body is the source of all life,” and she’s grateful that hers is healthy and able. She opens her underwear drawer and pulls out an amethyst pendant that her mother, Annabel, gave her for her 18th birthday. Stanzi opted to receive cash instead. Charlottes presses the pendant to her heart, then holds it above the incense. She prays “a few words to the universe” and know that it hears her. Then she lies naked on the floor, on her back, and hangs the pendant from her fist above her belly. When it spins slowly counter-clockwise, Charlotte knows she is pregnant.
The amethyst pendant functions in the same symbolic role as the shilling, representing the manner in which love connects different people through generations to each other, often in ways they do not realize. Charlotte’s prayers to the universe and use of a pendant to determine whether she is pregnant are written to seem somewhat unbelievable, again characterizing Charlotte as compassionate and optimistic, spiritual to a near fault.
Themes
After Charlotte realizes she’s pregnant, she goes to Stanzi for support, though so far her sister is mostly cynical and less confident in the pendant’s predictive power. At Stanzi’s house, they drink wine from a matching set of wineglasses, not mason jars. Charlotte is willing to take an actual pregnancy test like Stanzi wants her to, but she knows what she knows. Stanzi begs Charlotte to tell her that the dad is anyone besides “that complete moron Craig” but Charlotte knows it is him, and tries weakly to defend his honor by claiming he’s still young, even though he’s 24 like they are. Although Stanzi is so flippantly cynical, Charlotte knows it only means her sisters trusts her strength and knows she will survive this; she is not in real trouble.
The revelation that Charlotte and Stanzi are both 24 dates this narrative as occurring nine years before Stanzi’s. Charlotte’s unexpected pregnancy and ensuing crisis of how to handle it sets her up as a generational parallel to Connie, who will also be struck with an unexpected pregnancy. The parallel between them serves to illustrate both the similarities of shame and stigma thrust upon women, as well as the differences in access to safe abortion and social support.
Themes
Stanzi makes a quick run to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test while Charlotte sits on the floor and tries to meditate. Instead, she thinks of what’s growing inside her at this moment. It would seem easier if she were like Stanzi, with a college degree and a career path laid out, her own rented flat. Instead, she has “two casual jobs, no qualifications, no money,” and she lives in a dirty share house.
In spite of Stanzi’s stated belief that Charlotte’s life seems put together, Charlotte inner dilemma reveals that she feels the same way about Stanzi, thus suggesting that one’s perception of another person often does not account for that person’s inner pain, fears, or self-doubts.
Themes
Stanzi returns shortly with the pregnancy test and Charlotte takes it in the bathroom to pee on the stick. Stanzi looks at the result. The pendant was right. Charlotte feels an overwhelming desire to talk to Annabel and decides that they will drive to see her right away, until she realizes that means she will have to face Kip as well.
Charlotte’s apparent fear of facing her father suggests that she expects him to react negatively in some way. Although Charlotte enjoys much more freedom as a woman than Connie did, the stigma and fear of an unwanted pregnancy apparently remain.
Themes
Kip has been an excellent father all throughout Charlotte’s life, gentle and kind. The only time she’s ever seen him angry was when he walked in on her having sex with a boy in year twelve. Kip was fine with it, even grinned at his accidental intrusion, until he realized they were not using a condom, at which point he became immediately furious and chased the boy out of the house with a golf club. Charlotte knew her dad thought she was stupid and irresponsible in that moment, and she was crushed. Now, she fears he’ll feel the same way again.
The sexual freedom that Kip affords his own daughter, even when she still lives in his house, contrasts with the shame and stigma Connie will face over having had sex with Jack. The parallel suggests that women in Charlotte’s era, the late-20th century, enjoy a far greater latitude of freedom and empowerment than women possessed in the Connie’s era, only half a century prior.
Themes
Kip and Annabel are having dinner with Uncle Frank, who lives in the same house in which they grew up. Outside, Stanzi and Charlotte sit in Stanzi’s car while Charlotte decides if she will go in. Charlotte struggles to picture Kip and Frank living in this old house together, back when Richmond was a slum, when their father died drunkenly falling off a tram and their sister died of the flu. Stanzi reminds Charlotte that she doesn’t have to have the baby. The hospital is open, it’s a quick operation, and millions of women have done it before her even though they never talk about it. While Stanzi speaks, Charlotte tries to picture a life with Craig and cannot, and laments the fact that she’s achieved nothing in her life so far, settling for teaching yoga to people she doesn’t like and spending evenings in bars listening to music she hates.
Stanzi’s casual mention of abortion and reassurance that it is a safe and easy process suggests that women in the modern era have much better access to contraception and healthcare than women in previous generations. Once again, the safety and comparative acceptance of abortion in their day will contrast with the risk and tremendous stigma that abortion comes with in Connie’s era. Although abortion still seems stigmatized as a mark of irresponsibility, it is nowhere near as persecuted, and the relative ease of access to it again suggests that women enjoy much greater freedom in the modern era.
Themes
Stanzi continues to ramble until Charlotte tells her to “shut up.” Charlotte thinks about the money it takes to raise a baby (money she doesn’t have), how she’d hate to move back in with her parents, and about all the impossible challenges of parenthood. Then, gathering her courage, she decides they’re going inside. They knock at the door and call out. Uncle Frank opens the door and immediately exclaims that there must be some emergency, since they never visit. Frank rambles incessantly about nothing in particular while Stanzi and Charlotte sit down. Kip and Annabel sit up, and Annabel asks if Charlotte has come to visit because she broke up with Craig.
Charlotte’s regret that she has not accomplished anything with her life sharply contradicts Stanzi’s apparent perception of her as beautiful and the favorite child, again suggesting that individuals are rarely so two-dimensional or simple as others tend to perceive. This is again illustrated by Kip and Francis’s fate. While Jean and Mrs. Husting assumed Kip would amount to nothing, he has a family, while Francis, the favored child, is an old bachelor who lives alone.
Themes
Charlotte loses her nerve and steps out to the backyard and the lane beside the house to breathe. She knows that Kip would probably rather live here, but he sold his half of the house to Uncle Frank to buy a house in the suburbs where he could raise a family. Charlotte realizes how many sacrifices her father made for his family. She is still torn by the decision of what to do about her pregnancy. With no incense and no candles, Charlotte unhooks the pendant from around her neck, sits on the ground, pulls the band of her skirt down to expose her stomach, and asks the universe what she should do about the baby. She hangs the pendant down and it begins to spin.
Kip is depicted as an exceptional father and an all-around successful human being despite his hard upbringing and Jean’s assumptions that he would never be worth anything. Charlotte’s use of the pendant and “the universe” to make her decisions suggests that she is cripplingly indecisive and lacks the self-confidence to make and stick with her own decisions. This again defies the collected self-confidence that Stanzi later perceives her to have.
Themes
