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 throws his tenth draft of a letter to Sephy in the trash and starts again. He writes that he doesn’t know how she came up with the money to hire Kelani Adams, but he’s so grateful. He promises to make it up to her. Callum crumples that letter as well. He feels so helpless. He’s been having a recurring nightmare about being in a cardboard box that he can’t break out of—and then he discovers that it’s a coffin. When he discovers it’s a coffin, he stops fighting and waits to die. That’s the most terrifying part of the dream.
Just like Sephy, Callum feels helpless and lost. He doesn’t know how to thank Sephy for her help (though readers know Sephy wasn’t the one to hire Kelani), and he feels indebted to Sephy. Callum’s dream can be read as a reaction to his racist world. When he was a bit younger, it seemed like he could break out of the mold of what noughts are “supposed” to be—but as Callum gets older, it becomes harder to believe his life will ever get any better.
Themes
