Previous
Symbols
The shilling is a minor symbol to represent love’s power to connect family, friends, and even strangers to one other. The shilling embodies this love connection by being passed between characters and playing a minor role in several of the narratives, forming a common thread that concretely connects them to each other. Mr. Husting takes the coin from Jack and gives it to Kip, who keeps it until he eventually passes it down Stanzi. Stanzi’s narrative reflects that, though she’d once imagined that love must strike like lightning, she now thinks it must be more like a simple shilling, passed around between people, carried for years and given away. She believes that like love, if one could trace the “trajectory” of the shilling, they would find connections to both friends and complete strangers—perhaps even on the other side of the world.
The Shilling Quotes in Nine Days
The Nine Days quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Shilling. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2: Stanzi Quotes
Maybe lightning isn’t the best analogy for love. Maybe love is more like a coin: moving between people all around us, all the time, linking people within families and on the other side of the world, across oceans.
Related Characters:
Stanzi Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Annabel Crouch
Related Symbols:
The Shilling
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
41
Explanation and Analysis:
While Stanzi visits with her mother, Annabel, she thinks about how unfair it is to come from such loving parents with their happy marriage, since “lightning” cannot strike twice in the same family and it’s unlikely that she will ever find such love—that is, until she considers that love may be softer and quieter, like a shilling. This passage establishes the symbolism of Kip’s shilling as a representation of love’s connecting power and the way it forms bridges between individuals and generations, sometimes even between strangers. In the same way that the shilling passes from one individual to the next, forming a common thread in their narratives and connecting them to one another, so each person’s love for the next threads their stories together, uniting them, so that each person’s life and decisions impacts one another’s. This symbolic statement also applies to the amethyst pendant that appears later in the story, since it functions in the same manner, providing a common thread between stories and representing the same connective power of love.
Get the entire Nine Days LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The Shilling Symbol Timeline in Nine Days
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Shilling appears in Nine Days. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Kip
...even though he’s 14. Seeing how nice Charlie looks, Mr. Husting gives Kip a whole shilling, which seems like a huge sum of money to the boy, and he knows he’ll...
(full context)
...Hustings however, he reaches his hand in his pocket and realizes that he’s left his shilling in his other shorts, and he doesn’t trust Francis not to steal it. He’d wanted...
(full context)
...to the laundry trough in the yard. While he’s fishing around for his shorts and shilling, he pulls out a huge pair of women’s underwear, belonging to Mrs. Keith. They’re so...
(full context)
Chapter 2: Stanzi
As Violet traipses around the room, she notices a shilling sitting on Stanzi’s otherwise bare desk. Stanzi remarks that it’s her father’s prized possession, it...
(full context)
...problems and self-centeredness sound legitimate. As Stanzi packs her things to leave, she realizes the shilling is missing.
(full context)
Stanzi calls Charlotte from her car to ask what year the shilling was. Charlotte is too wary of cell phone radiation to own her own phone, so...
(full context)
...just buy another coin, and though Stanzi can’t see what’s wrong with it, especially since shillings are so common, Charlotte is deeply disappointed and demands that Stanzi go find the real...
(full context)
Stanzi goes to the address in Violet’s file to ask for the shilling. If she doesn’t find it, she’ll know her parents will figure out she lost it,...
(full context)
...the door, but is surprised to see Stanzi there. Stanzi tells Violet about the missing shilling and asks if it might’ve fallen into Violet’s purse, but Violet’s reaction tells her that...
(full context)
...in the night in their kitchen, heartbroken. She returned to her office and found the shilling buried in the carpet—though kneeling down was quite difficult and painful for her. In Annabel’s...
(full context)
...does not even love herself enough to love anyone else at this point. Holding the shilling in her hand, Stanzi thinks that perhaps love is something like the coin, passed around...
(full context)
Chapter 3: Jack
...with Mr. Husting. When his dad wanted to go to sleep, Jack pulled out a shilling and told Mr. Husting he’d flipped for it, but Mr. Husting snatched it out of...
(full context)
Chapter 8: Alec
...pendant to give and two daughters—even though Stanzi took cash instead. He gives Stanzi the shilling, now threaded on a silver chain, making her well up with tears, and enough money...
(full context)
