The shell necklace that Kya gives to Chase becomes a manifestation of the dissonance between her desire to be loved and her wariness to let other people into her life. When she and Chase first spend time together, he finds a shell and gives it to her. Later that very day, Chase forces Kya out of her comfort zone by trying to have sex with her before she’s ready—a turn of events that imbues the shell with meaning, turning it into a reminder that even people who seem nice at first can quickly turn into a threat. However, Kya ends up putting the shell on a necklace that she later gives to Chase as a gift. This suggests that her yearning to be in a relationship with somebody overrides her initial misgivings about Chase. What’s interesting, though, is that Kya takes the shell necklace off of Chase’s dead body after killing him, thereby symbolically reclaiming her power over their relationship by taking back the very thing that represents both her own acquiescence to Chase and the danger that he posed to her wellbeing.
The Shell Necklace Symbol Timeline in Where the Crawdads Sing
