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Chapter 2: Bendarat
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Simple Gift, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Riches and Poverty
Redemption
Love and Family
Rules and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Caitlin and mopping. Caitlin watches Billy take the food left behind by other McDonald’s patrons. Her first impulse is to tell him to put the food back, but she stops herself. She reasons that the food was just going to be thrown away otherwise. She’s mopping the floor—a job she hates—and she continues watching Billy as he helps himself to part of an abandoned apple pie. Billy notices Caitlin watching, and he stares at her, almost as if daring her to tell the manager. Instead, she smiles and confesses to him that she hates mopping. When Billy finishes eating, he walks up, reads her name off her badge, and wishes her goodnight.
This poem switches speakers from Billy to Catlin, giving readers a different perspective on Billy’s time at the McDonald’s and introducing them to the second of the book’s three main characters. Caitlin’s initial inclination to turn Billy in for taking abandoned fries suggests that she is one of the “rule-followers” that Billy mistrusts. But in interrogating this impulse and choosing not to report him, she joins Billy in the camp of the rule-breakers. This suggests a similarity between the two, intimating that Billy may not be so alone.
Active
Themes
Too rich. Caitlin doesn’t need to work at McDonalds. Her family is wealthy. But her mom matches her paychecks and puts all the money in a savings account for college. Caitlin can’t wait to go to college, but she has two years left at Bendarat Grammar School—the $10,000-a-year private high school. Unlike her friends at the public school, she must wear a school uniform.
Because her family has wealth, Caitlin experiences a financial and material security that contrasts directly with Billy’s severe poverty. Yet, Caitlin’s musings here suggest that she and Billy have other similarities; both find their family lives to be unfulfilling (even if Caitlin experiences her parents as distant rather than abusive). And, like runaway Billy, Caitlin can’t wait to leave home and create a life on her own terms in college.
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Themes
Billy. Billy immediately notices Caitlin’s bouncy, shiny, clean hair, her clear skin, and her expensive watch. He realizes that she’s rich, but he also sees intelligence in her eyes. At first, he wanted to hate her because he expected her to call the store Manager on him. But when she smiled and complained about mopping, he felt a sense of kinship with her, born of the fact that they were both doing things they didn’t like but had to do.
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Themes
Breakfast. Billy likes Bendarat. He has a welcoming library in which to read, a McDonald’s where he can collect enough food for his supper, and a cozy abandoned train car to sleep in. Each morning, he walks to the apple and pear orchards outside town, climbs their fences, and picks fresh fruit for his breakfast. He walks past the Bendarat Grammar School—where he thinks Caitlin must go—on his way, but he’s careful to pass before school hours. He doesn’t want her to see him walking past in his same old, well-worn clothes.
Active
Themes
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Hunger. Caitlin doesn’t really like her job at McDonald’s, but she admits that it has gotten more interesting since Billy showed up. After he said goodbye the first night, she went to wipe off his table and she found a note. It asked her if she knew the origin and meaning of her name, “Caitlin.” It’s an Irish form of Catherine and it means “pure and innocent.” Reading the note made her feel pangs of hunger, but not for food.
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Themes
Manners. Billy comes back to the McDonald’s on another night. There are more patrons, and the Manager comes to the upstairs dining room, so Caitlin can’t chat with him. But when the Manager finally leaves, she mops over to his table to introduce herself as Caitlin Holmes. Billy shakes her hand politely and tells her his name, Billy Luckett.
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Themes
Business. The third time Billy eats at the McDonald’s, he hands Caitlin a business card when he says goodnight. She thinks he’s much more polite than any other boy she knows. At first, the business card confuses her since it’s for an electrical contractor named Peter Robinson. But when she turns it over, she finds Billy’s card, which gives his name, his job (“Unemployed Friend”) and his address in the abandoned car at the Freight Yard. She smiles at the realization that he’s proud of his life, even though he clearly doesn’t have a home.
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Themes
Caitlin. Caitlin considers herself a normal 17-year-old girl. She thinks about boys—at least generic boys, not any that she knows—and she sometimes talks with them at school. She’s aware when her friends, Kate and Petra, flirt with boys. She’s been on a few dates, but mostly in groups. She’s done “a few things” with boys at parties, “mild stuff.” There’s nothing wrong with her so-called love life, but also nothing real about it.
