Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Where the Crawdads Sing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival, Necessity, and Violence
Independence vs. Human Connection
Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood
Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance
Summary
Analysis
After feeding the gulls, Kya jumps in her boat and goes as fast as she can toward the ocean, blasting into the open waters and making her way straight for an area known as “the rips,” where vicious currents churn and threatened to overcome anyone who enters them. With waves crashing over her boat, she feels no fear and even revels in the elemental tug of the natural world. Soon, though, Kya’s boat whips around, and fear creeps in as she loses her sense of equilibrium. She does all she can to save herself, somehow managing to beach her boat on a lone sandbar near the rapid currents. Flinging herself onto the sand, Kya pants, thinking about Chase and how everyone in her life has abandoned or rejected her.
Reeling with emotional pain, Kya tries to distract herself by refocusing on the one thing she knows takes precedent over all else in life: survival. Because Kya’s immediate environment doesn’t pose a threat to her wellbeing, she seeks out danger by taking her boat to “the rips,” wanting to reframe her sorrow by making it seem insignificant in comparison to the power of the natural world and its ability to destroy her.
Themes
Kya thinks once more that she must live a solitary life. With this in mind, she recites an Amanda Hamilton poem, which begins, “I must let go now. / Let you go.” As the sun sets, Kya looks at the shells on this small sandbar, appreciating them and recognizing that the waters will soon overtake this small sliver of land. Accordingly, she sets off once more, making her way toward safety.
Once again, Kya has found that opening up to another human results in nothing but sorrow and pain. Accordingly, she makes yet another resolution to lead an independent, individualistic life, forcing herself to “let go” of connections to people like Chase (and for that matter, to Tate).
Themes
