Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in We Were Liars, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wealth and Greed
Bigotry and Exclusion
Death, Loss, and Memory
Lies and Invention
Romantic Love vs. Family
Summary
Analysis
When she is eight years old, Cady’s father gives her a collection of fairy tales to read, and although they are from many different cultures, they all seemed to have the same structure, beginning with three characters—three bears, three pigs, three princesses, etc. When she returned from her summer trip to Europe, Cady began to write her own fairy tales.
The second part of the novel begins by introducing Cady’s deep connection to fairy tales, which will become her coping mechanism for coming to terms with the issues within her family, her relationship with Gat, and the mystery surrounding her accident.
Themes
Once upon a time, begins Cady, there was a king with three beautiful daughters. One day, he asked each of his daughters to tell him how much they love him. The first two daughters gave him answers that satisfied him, but the youngest told him that she loved him “as meat loves salt,” so he banished her from the castle. She became a cook at an inn, and years later she found herself serving roast pig to her own father. She didn’t salt the meat, and when the King complained, the cook reminded him of what his youngest daughter once said to him, and how he banished her. The King realized that the cook was his daughter and that she did, indeed, love him best.
All of Cady’s fairy tales have a similar structure—a king and his three daughters—that reflects her feelings about her family. In her eyes, Cady’s grandfather is a grand, royal figure, but he also puts his daughters through a series of trials so they can prove their love to him. In this first story, the youngest daughter is clever, which at first causes problems for her, as the king is unable to understand the metaphor she uses—that of meat and salt.
Themes
The youngest daughter was reunited with the King, but the story does not have a happy ending. The two older sisters were constantly fighting for their father’s favor, but he suddenly gave the kingdom to the youngest daughter, which enraged her two older sisters. The youngest quickly realized that the King was a tyrant, and that as Queen, she would be stuck with him for the rest of her life. But she knew that she would not leave him.
In this fairy tale, the traditional format is turned on its head when it is revealed that the king is not worthy of his clever daughter’s love. Through this retelling, Cady is questions whether it is right for the family to strive so hard to please Harris, and whether he is worthy of such admiration.
Themes
After returning from Europe, Cady begins to give away her possessions, one at a time—she mails off old toys and accessories she no longer has any use for, hands out books at school, and gives a homeless girl the pillow from her bed. Her family had always been deeply attached to their possessions, and when she asks her mother why she needs so many useless objects, Penny replies that they provide her with beauty, a sense of personal history, and pleasure. Cady disagrees, however, and thinks that the accumulation of valuable objects makes her mother feel powerful and more than just a Bryn Mawr dropout.
Cady’s compulsion to rid herself of everything she owns is another way for Cady to question her family’s values and traditions. Until she began spending time with Gat, Cady didn’t think critically about her family’s wealth, but is now viewing this affluence from a different perspective. She may also be responding to the grief and guilt she feels—though she does not consciously recognize it yet—for her part in the tragic events the previous summer.
Themes
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Cady knows that selective amnesia is a common side effect of her traumatic brain injury, but she does not want to continue to feel disabled any longer and tries to pull together her memories from that summer. Mirren’s hand holding a jug of gasoline for the motorboats, Johnny running down the stairs from Clairmont to a boathouse, and Harris holding on to a tree while watching a bonfire. She had nothing but snippets, and when she asks her mother to tell her what happened, Penny would get frustrated and complain that she had already tells Cady a dozen times. So Cady doesn’t ask again.
What Cady does not yet remember about that summer is that she and the other Liars set fire to Clairmont, and that Johnny, Mirren, and Gat all died in the fire, and she was the only one who survived. This explains the snippets of memories she can recall: Mirren is holding a jug of gasoline they used to ignite the fire, for example, and Harris is watching the burning house, not a bonfire. But she is not yet ready to remember it all.
Themes
Cady’s father wants to bring her to Australia and New Zealand for the following summer, but Cady refuses—she is ready to return to Beechwood and find out what happened the night of her accident. But the trip is already paid for, and Penny will not let her back out of it. Harris comes to Burlington to stay for a few days, and Cady is surprised to see how thin and weak he seems now, compared to the invincible man she remembers from childhood. While he is visiting, Harris reminisces about Cady’s birth, recalling that Penny brought her to see him in Boston when she is just a baby, dressed in a pink romper.
Cady is beginning to recognize her grandfather for the flawed human he really is, as opposed to the legendary figure he makes himself out to be. Yet while she sees him as old and frail, he prefers to remind himself and his family of their storied past, when he was likely as invincible as Cady believed. He is also using his money to help Cady come to terms with the accident: by funding a trip to Australia, he believes he is giving her time to heal away from the island.
Themes
Cady tells another fairy tale: there was once a king with three daughters. One day, a three-headed dragon began to attack the kingdom, and the king promised one of the daughters to anyone who could slay the dragon. Many brave men tried, but the dragon ate them all; the king then decided to send his own daughters to beg for mercy, but the dragon simply ate them all before they could say a word. The question is, who killed the princesses—the dragon or the king?
Again, Cady uses the fairy tale format to try and come to terms with various unanswered questions about her family. Once again, her grandfather is the king, who is both revered and imperfect—but this time, he puts his daughters at risk and is punished for it. Cady sees Harris as responsible for letting his daughters down in some way.
Themes
After Harris leaves Burlington, Penny cancels the Australia trip and decides to let Cady go to Beechwood for the summer. She then has many hushed conversations with her sisters, and Cady can only hear snippets. Penny is telling them how fragile Cady is, and how everyone must be gentle with her. A few weeks later, right before they are ready to leave for the island, Cady gets a call from Taft, one of her younger cousins. He wants to know if it is true that she is a drug addict, and then asks if he can sleep with her when she is on the island. Cady tells him to sleep with Mirren instead, and he says okay and hangs up.
Cady is still unaware of the fact that the other Liars have died, and Penny is attempting to protect her from that discovery and the pain and shock it will cause her. Because she does not realize the real reason Penny is being so careful, Cady is annoyed by her mother’s behavior and will continue to rebel against it. Her phone call with her younger cousin is a sneak peek into the changes that have gone on in her family since the accident.
Themes
