Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Noughts and Crosses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Division, and Tragedy
Awareness and Privilege
Love, Lust, Power, and Violence
Friendship
Youth, Innocence, and Growing Up
Family
Summary
Analysis
Callum can’t cry, so he figures something is wrong with him. He flops around on his bed and sticks his fists under his pillow so he doesn’t punch the wall. He finds an envelope with his name on it under the pillow—and the writing is Lynette’s. Terrified, Callum opens the letter. Lynette writes that she wants him to know the truth. If he’s reading this, hopefully she’s dead. She’s just tired, and she can’t stand being sane again. Lynette explains that she’ll try to make it look like an accident to save Mum and Dad the shame, but she needs Callum to know the truth. She doesn’t want to live in a world where she’ll never be good enough because she’s a nought. She hopes Sephy and Callum have better luck than she and Jed had.
Callum is grieving and angry—and he’s struggling to figure out how to manage his difficult emotions. Finding Lynette’s letter confirms that Lynette’s death was a suicide. Lynette implies that she doesn’t want Callum to share with Mum and Dad that she committed suicide, so if Callum agrees to follow her wishes, she’s putting a huge burden on him. In addition, Lynette notes that she’s generally worn down by the racism she experiences on a daily basis. This speaks to how harmful racism is: it pushes Lynette to take her own life, as dying seems preferable to suffering racism regularly.
Themes
Callum stares at the letter, his eyes finally getting wet. He sits until his eyes stop smarting and then tears it into pieces. For the first time ever, Callum hates Lynette. She gave up. She wished him all her love at the end of the letter, but it seems like love just causes pain and makes people give up. Callum vows to never let anything make him want to follow in her footsteps.
At the beginning of the chapter, Callum wanted nothing more than to cry—but now he pushes his tears away. Believing that Lynette “gave up” makes Callum so angry that he decides to avoid love altogether, presumably so that he won’t want to die himself one day. This, of course, has major implications for his relationship with Sephy, as Callum does have feelings for her.
Themes
