Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Turtles All the Way Down, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Selfhood, and Mental Illness
Chaos vs. Order and Control
Language and Meaning
Privilege, Power, and Wealth
Summary
Analysis
That night, Aza tries to text Davis, gives up, and pulls out her laptop. She searches for usernames similar to Davis’s other ones and finally searches a line from one of Davis’s poems. She finds a blog created two months ago that follows the same format as Davis’s last blog. Most of the entries are about feeling alone and the vastness of the world. Aza finally notices that a "she" shows up in the blog and realizes it's her. All the entries about her start with a line from The Tempest.
Davis never stopped writing—he just found a different place to publish his work. It's still public since it's on the internet, but this allows him to maintain a sense of anonymity. Notably, this creation of a new internet identity is comforting for Davis, while for Aza experiencing a similar “split” within her identity is anxiety-inducing.
Themes
Aza clicks over to the "poems" tab on the blog and reads poems about Davis's parents. Aza's phone vibrates with a text from Davis. He asks if she's on his blog and is relieved that she is: he says he doesn't want his poems published. He asks how she found it and says he doesn't want to have to take the blog down.
Leaving aside Davis’s own wishes about what happens to his work, it's worth noting that publishing private work on the internet is inherently risky. Davis really has no control over who finds his blog or saves his poems, leaving that part of his identity extremely exposed and vulnerable.
Themes
Aza asks if Davis wants to facetime. He agrees and when they begin the call, they don't talk—they just silently look at each other on their screens. Aza realizes they can only see each other in the dark because the light from their phones provides the light to illuminate their faces. Aza feels as though they're together in a "non-sensorial place" and closer than they could be in real life. When they hang up, Davis texts that he likes their relationship. Aza believes him.
Aza finds this light cycle comforting, and it allows her to feel close to Davis. Video chat in general enables someone to be somewhere without actually being there, which is certainly comforting to Aza: since there's no fear of bacterial contamination over facetime, she can experience the emotional intimacy she craves.
Themes
