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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Remarkably Bright Creatures, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Grief and Memory
Loneliness and Companionship
Family
Closure and Healing
Summary
Analysis
Marcellus explains how he escapes his tank to hunt for food. Slipping through the small opening where the pump connects is the easy part. The real challenge begins once he’s out—he has only 18 minutes before “The Consequences” set in and he begins to lose consciousness. He can either stay in the pump room or push his luck by opening the door to the main tank, where the best fish are. But opening the door takes time. Once, he tried to prop it open with a stool, but it shifted, nearly costing him his life. No one knows how he escapes, and Marcellus intends to keep it that way.
Marcellus’s nightly escapes demonstrate his supreme intelligence. His process reads almost like a secret mission, with its precision and high stakes. He calculates both time and risk, a sign he’s clearly experienced with this kind of thing. But his insistence on keeping his methods hidden reveals a hint of pride, as he’s not escaping to survive—he’s outwitting his captors mostly because he can, even if it almost kills him.
Themes
