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
A week after Chase attacks Kya, she receives an invitation to meet her editor in Greenville, since he’ll be there for business. While in the marsh one day, Kya encounters Tate and momentarily panics because she doesn’t want him to see what Chase did to her face. Because there’s no way to avoid Tate’s boat, though, she drifts up to him and he invites her onboard to see his new microscope. As they talk, Kya keeps one side of her head turned away. When Tate shows her a slide of pond water under the microscope, she can’t believe her eyes and appreciates how many tiny creatures and organisms she can see. As she does this, Tate admires how thoroughly in touch she is with the natural world.
Again, readers watch as Kya keeps herself from getting too close to Tate again, afraid that he’ll hurt her once more. At the same time, though, she can’t quite resist spending time with him, though this means hiding her wounds from him because she knows he’d probably want to address what happened if he knew what Chase did to her. And because Kya is sure that very few people would take her side on this issue, she decides that it’d be easier if Tate simply remained unaware of the entire incident, effectively distancing one of the few people who genuinely wants to help her.
Themes
Eventually, Tate sees Kya’s bruised face and asks what happened, and she tells him that she ran into a door in the night. Instantly, he knows this is a lie, intuiting that somebody must have hit her and that it must have been Chase, though he doesn’t know if they’re still seeing each other. Aware that his concern will drive Kya way, though, he asks her about her current book project, and she tells him that she’s going to meet her editor at the end of October. Hearing this, Tate tells her to go to Jumpin’s to look at the bus schedule. She thanks him and prepares to go, but before she leaves, he insists that she take his red hat because it’s cold. At first, Kya declines, but Tate throws it into her boat. For a moment, they pass it back and forth before Kya speeds away.
Tate’s concern for Kya is quite genuine, but he knows that she’ll retreat from him if he makes a big deal about her injury. This illustrates just how well he knows her, in addition to the fact that he’s a very sensitive and caring person. On another note, it’s worth pointing out that the red hat that eventually becomes evidence against Kya in Chase’s murder trial appears in this scene, but it’s unclear whether or not Kya ends up taking it home or if she manages to throw it in Tate’s boat before leaving. In this way, Owens invites readers to question if Tate is perhaps the one who really killed Chase.
Themes
After leaving Tate, Kya goes to the beach near her shack. As she relaxes, she hears the distinct sound of Chase’s motorboat, and she knows she has to leave. From dealing with Pa, she understands that men like Chase always need to have the final say in an argument. Since Kya left him keeled over in the sand the last time they saw each other, Chase surely wants revenge. Getting in her boat, Kya motors away and hides until Chase leaves the area. That night, she sleeps on the beach, ready to jump up and leave at a moment’s notice.
After Chase attempts to rape Kya, she is on high alert, constantly looking out for the slightest sign that he has come back to harm her. As a result, it becomes clear that Kya is in survival mode, feeling as if there’s an imminent threat to her safety. Considering that she prizes survival over all else and even thinks of violence in nature as a necessary means of self-preservation, the fact that she feels threatened by Chase aligns with the notion that she might kill him to protect herself.
Themes
