Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mysterious Benedict Society, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Confidence and Growing Up
Deception vs. Truth
Loneliness vs. Friendship
Control vs. Freedom
Hope
Summary
Analysis
The children find themselves in a warm room that smells of ink. The room is in the process of being disassembled, but it is clearly busy very often. Inside are two tables of printed material, a printer printing page after page, and a television. The members of the Mysterious Benedict Society cram themselves into a crate to hide as Mr. Curtain comes in. Within the crate, Sticky desperately gestures to Kate, and she sees that his spectacles fell on the floor. She manages to reach her bucket and withdraw her horseshoe magnet. She pulls the spectacles over with the magnet and brings them into the crate just as Mr. Curtain looks over.
Kate’s bucket proves its usefulness once again as she uses the tools within to retrieve Sticky’s spectacles. Sticky looks to Kate for help, and she happily provides it. However, the fact that Sticky is comfortable looking to Kate for help does not convince her that she can do the same, and she continues to insist on appearing invulnerable throughout the story. Sticky’s spectacles also represent his anxiety. He drops them when the Society is embarking on one of their most dangerous investigations yet, which underscores that Sticky is facing his fears and proving his bravery without knowing it.
Themes
A few minutes later, Mr. Curtain leaves the room, and the children get out of the crate. Sticky looks through the stacks of papers and discovers they are government press releases dated for the future. They are reports that Mr. Curtain plans to send to newspapers once he names himself Minister and Secretary of all The Earth’s Regions (M.A.S.T.E.R) and ends the Emergency. Reynie realizes Mr. Curtain created the Emergency as the first step in this plan. Mr. Curtain believes that fear is the most important aspect of humanity, so he has created a fear the whole world shares. The next step is to soothe that fear with messages, until everyone loves the Whisperer as much as the Messengers. This will then make everyone love Mr. Curtain.
Mr. Curtain’s plan is finally laid bare. He has manufactured The Emergency in a grand-scale deception that will enable him to seize political power. He has created a problem that he can then solve, which will earn the public’s trust. His plan involves undermining people’s free will and independent thought twofold: first to generate the fear that characterizes the Emergency, and then to soothe that fear and secure the world’s loyalty. He plans to use his two primary tools, deception and fear, to seize absolute worldwide control.
Themes
They find another press release claiming Mr. Curtain is the best man to handle the “amnesia epidemic.” Further research indicates this is another problem Mr. Curtain plans to create by brainsweeping those who might oppose him. The entire Institute has been an experiment to make sure his plan can work. Once the Improvement is enacted, the Institute will become the Amnesia Sanctuary, where Mr. Curtain can isolate any possible resistance.
Not only does the Institute hide all of Mr. Curtain’s deception, but the Institute itself is a deception. Mr. Curtain is so obsessed with achieving uncontested control that he plans to eliminate any possible resistance. If he succeeds, every person on Earth will either be mind-controlled or brainswept by Mr. Curtain.
Themes
