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
Ed and Joe receive the first lab report, which reveals that Chase died between midnight and two in the morning on October 30th, and that there were no fingerprints left on the scene. This means that somebody wiped any prints, supporting the idea that the footprints were also purposefully obscured. Given this information, Ed declares that Chase’s death must not have been an accident. Deciding to go back out to the fire tower to investigate some more, the two men stop at the Barkley Cove Diner and listen to the many rumors about Chase’s death. As they wait for their food, they hear Miss Pansy Price speculate that the person who killed Chase must have been the woman who lives in the marsh, since she was apparently “involved” with Chase for a number of years.
It has already been established that Chase was something of a philanderer, even after he married Pearl. Now, though, it emerges that Chase had a relationship with a woman who lived in the marsh. Although Owens doesn’t specify who, exactly, this woman is, it seems likely that it’s Kya. In turn, readers are invited to wonder not only how Kya would have become the kind of woman to commit a murder, but also how she came to be in a relationship with Chase, a man from a completely different walk of life. That they were ever “involved” with each other suggests that Kya eventually ventures beyond the confines of her sequestered life, putting her trust in strangers—to disastrous effect, it seems.
Themes
