Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing

by

Delia Owens

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Survival, Necessity, and Violence Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Survival, Necessity, and Violence Theme Icon
Independence vs. Human Connection Theme Icon
Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood Theme Icon
Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance Theme Icon
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 Theme Icon

In Where the Crawdads Sing, a novel about a young girl growing up alone in the marshlands of North Carolina, Delia Owens frames survival as an innately human skill that arises out of necessity. When Kya is a child, her mother leaves home, and her older siblings follow their mother’s lead, escaping the dilapidated shack Kya’s family owns in a remote section of the marsh. This decision to leave is in and of itself something of a survival tactic, since Kya’s siblings want to escape their abusive father. Soon enough, Kya’s brother Jodie, who is closest in age to her, leaves too. Alone with her alcoholic father, Kya adopts certain behaviors that are necessary to her survival, like acquiring food and cooking. She also learns to interact with her father in a way that won’t set him off. In other words, she learns how to adjust to the harsh reality of his violence, proving that she’s capable of protecting herself even in threatening circumstances. This ability becomes even more essential to Kya wellbeing when her father disappears as well, as she has to fend for herself—a mere seven-year-old—in the wilderness without any support. And though most readers might assume that Kya would need adult guidance to sustain herself, she manages to not only stay alive, but to establish a rather peaceful life, illustrating the human capacity to adapt to unfavorable circumstances—a capacity that requires little more than necessity to flourish.

Early in the first chapter, it becomes clear that Where the Crawdads Sing is interested in examining what it takes to survive, viewing the process of staying alive not as something that a person learns, but rather as a hard-wired response to adversity. Owens goes out of her way to suggest that living things will always do whatever it takes to survive, especially when “cornered, desperate, or isolated.” She maintains that there’s an evolutionary reason for this, since traits that increase the likelihood of survival are “passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes.” With this in mind, it isn’t surprising that Kya manages to protect herself even as a seven-year-old when her family leaves her alone with her abusive father. Because Kya’s father doesn’t bother to feed her, she takes it upon herself to start cooking, even though she doesn’t know how. Through a process of trial and error, Kya gradually learns how to address her hunger pangs. What’s more, she cleans the house and makes things look nice, trying to reduce the likelihood that her father will take his drunken anger out on her. Sure enough, this pleases him so much that he starts treating Kya with more compassion, even taking her out on his boat and teaching her to fish. In this way, Kya manages to decrease the most dangerous threat in her life, mollifying her father and adapting to her environment in a manner that decreases the chances that she’ll starve or experience physical harm.

When Kya’s father disappears, Kya forced to develop new survival tactics. Although he didn’t do much to help her stay alive, he at least gave her small amounts of money for groceries, and he paid for gas so they could use their small motorboat to fish. Without this financial help, Kya has no choice but to rise once again to the challenge of sustaining herself. To do this, she collects mussels and trades them to a kind man named Jumpin’ in exchange for gasoline, which enables her to keep fishing. She also learns to garden, gaining the self-sufficiency to live off her own land. Once again, then, Kya simply responds to the realities of the world, finding ways to scrape by because doing so is her only choice. And though Owens invites readers to marvel at Kya’s resourcefulness, she also intimates that these survival skills are ingrained in nature itself, since Kya observes that all of the animals and insects around her are—like her—doing whatever it takes to survive.

Of course, there is sometimes a ruthlessness to survival, especially in nature. Kya grasps this by observing the many creatures living around her. Once, for example, she watches female fireflies flash their lights to attract mates. Kya knows there are different species of firefly and that each species has its own distinctive light pattern, making it easy for males to identify mates of the correct species. After watching a female attract and mate with a male, Kya sees that very same female flash a different light pattern, thereby coaxing a male of a different species to her and, when he arrives, eating him. Upon witnessing this, Kya thinks about how she has no right to judge this female firefly. “Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players,” she thinks, noting that biology doesn’t distinguish between right and wrong. In turn, readers see that Kya is interested in one thing and one thing only: survival by any means.

It is perhaps because of this ruthless approach to survival that, as an adult, Kya uses violent tactics to take revenge on Chase Andrews, her former lover who tries to rape her. It’s worth pointing out that she most likely fears for her life after Chase attempts to rape her, worrying that he’ll come back for her after she narrowly escapes. At the same time, though, readers learn at the end of the novel that Kya has committed premeditated murder, planning out his death in a way that makes it hard to argue that she was acting purely out of self-preservation. However, Where the Crawdads Sing is about the harsh realities of the world, and Kya takes cues from the merciless survival tactics of creatures like the female firefly. In turn, the novel isn’t interested in condemning Kya for killing Chase. Instead, Owens simply presents a portrait of a young woman who has learned to do whatever it takes to ensure her safety, even if this means going against the moral considerations that humans have superimposed onto nature.

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Survival, Necessity, and Violence Quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing

Below you will find the important quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing related to the theme of Survival, Necessity, and Violence.
Chapter 1 Quotes

“A ma don’t leave her kids. It ain’t in ’em.”

“You told me that fox left her babies.”

“Yeah, but that vixen got ’er leg all tore up. She’d’ve starved to death if she’d tried to feed herself ’n’ her kits. She was better off to leave ’em, heal herself up, then whelp more when she could raise ’em good. Ma ain’t starvin’, she’ll be back.” Jodie wasn’t nearly as sure as he sounded, but said it for Kya.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Jodie (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Just like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws—not like those burned onto stone tablets or inscribed on docu­ments, but deeper ones, stamped in their genes. Ancient and natural, like those hatched from hawks and doves. When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark)
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

A gnawing hunger—such a mundane thing—surprised her. She walked to the kitchen and stood at the door. All her life the room had been warmed from baking bread, boiling butter beans, or bubbling fish stew. Now, it was stale, quiet, and dark. “Who’s gonna cook?” she asked out loud. Could have asked, Who’s gonna dance?

She lit a candle and poked at hot ashes in the woodstove, added kin­dling. Pumped the bellows till a flame caught, then more wood.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

When she was led into the school office, they found her name but no date of birth in the county birth records, so they put her in the sec­ond grade, even though she’d never been to school a day in her life. Anyhow, they said, the first grade was too crowded, and what differ­ence would it make to marsh people who’d do a few months of school, maybe, then never be seen again.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Mrs. Culpepper
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Ma used to soak wounds in salt water and pack them with mud mixed with all kinds of potions. There was no salt in the kitchen, so Kya limped into the woods toward a brackish slipstream so salty at low tide, its edges glistened with brilliant white crystals. She sat on the ground, soaking her foot in the marsh’s brine, all the while moving her mouth: open, close, open, close, mocking yawns, chewing motions, anything to keep it from jamming up. After nearly an hour, the tide receded enough for her to dig a hole in the black mud with her fingers, and she eased her foot gently into the silky earth. The air was cool here, and eagle cries gave her bearing.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Ah swannee, girl, what’s a’ this? Looks like ya went an’ got all growed up. Cookin’ and all.” He didn’t smile, but his face was calm. He was unshaven, with dark unwashed hair hanging across his left temple. But he was sober; she knew the signs.

“Yessir. I fixed cornbread too, but it didn’t come out.”

“Well, ah thankee. That’s a mighty good girl. Ah’m plumb wore out and hungry as a wallow-hog.” He pulled out a chair and sat, so she did the same.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Pa (Kya’s Father) (speaker)
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Lawd, we gotta do something 'bout that child. Ain’t nobody gonna buy them fish; I can cook ’em up in stew. Our church can come up wif some clothes, other things for her. We’ll tell ’er there’s some family that’ll trade jumpers for carpies. What size is she?”

Related Characters: Mabel (speaker), Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Jumpin’
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

As Kya had crept closer, she saw it was a hen turkey on the ground, and the birds of her own flock were pecking and toe-scratching her neck and head. Somehow she’d managed to get her wings so tangled with briars, her feathers stuck out at strange angles and she could no longer fly. Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others—disfigured or wounded—it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take one of them in the bargain.

[…]

Kya ran into the clearing, throwing her arms around. “Hey, what ya doing? Git outta here. Stop it!” The flurry of wings kicked up more dust as the turkeys scattered into brush, two of them flying heavy into an oak. But Kya was too late.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate, Jodie
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Her impulse, as always, was to run. But there was another sensa­tion. A fullness she hadn’t felt for years. As if something warm had been poured inside her heart. She thought of the feathers, the spark plug, and the seeds. All of it might end if she ran. Without speaking, she lifted her hand and held the elegant swan feather toward him. Slowly, as though she might spring like a startled fawn, he walked over and studied it in her hand. She watched in silence, looking only at the feather, not his face, nowhere near his eyes.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

She went around reading everything—the directions on the grits bag, Tate’s notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pre­tended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom. There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters […].

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Reading her message, the second male was convinced he’d found a willing female of his own kind and hovered above her to mate. But sud­denly the female firefly reached up, grabbed him with her mouth, and ate him, chewing all six legs and both wings.

Kya watched others. The females got what they wanted—first a mate, then a meal—just by changing their signals.

Kya knew judgment had no place here. Evil was not in play, just life pulsing on, even at the expense of some of the players. Biology sees right and wrong as the same color in different light.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate
Related Symbols: Fireflies
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

On some level he knew she behaved this way, but since the feather game, had not witnessed the raw, unpeeled core. How tormented, iso­lated, and strange.

[…]

Kya’s mind could easily live [in the environment of a biology lab], but she could not. Breathing hard, he stared at his decision hiding there in cord grass: Kya or every­thing else.

“Kya, Kya, I just can’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

After she moved away, he got into his boat and motored back to­ward the ocean. Swearing at the coward inside who would not tell her good-bye.

Related Characters: Tate (speaker), Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark)
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

She knew from her studies that males go from one female to the next, so why had she fallen for this man? His fancy ski boat was the same as the pumped-up neck and outsized antlers of a buck deer in rut: appendages to ward off other males and attract one female after another. Yet she had fallen for the same ruse as Ma: […] sneaky fuckers.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate, Chase Andrews, Ma (Kya’s Mother)
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

“It happens in humans, too. Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in what­ ever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.

“Maybe some primitive urge—some ancient genes, not appropriate anymore—drove Ma to leave us because of the stress, the horror and real danger of living with Pa. That doesn’t make it right; she should have chosen to stay. But knowing that these tendencies are in our bio­ logical blueprints might help one forgive even a failed mother. That may explain her leaving, but I still don’t see why she didn’t come back.”

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 53 Quotes

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I grew up in Barkley Cove, and when I was a younger man I heard the tall tales about the Marsh Girl. Yes, let’s just get this out in the open. We called her the Marsh Girl. Many still call her that. Some people whispered that she was part wolf or the missing link between ape and man. That her eyes glowed in the dark. Yet in reality, she was only an abandoned child, a little girl sur­viving on her own in a swamp, hungry and cold, but we didn’t help her. Except for one of her only friends, Jumpin’, not one of our churches or community groups offered her food or clothes. Instead we labeled and rejected her because we thought she was different. But, ladies and gen­tlemen, did we exclude Miss Clark because she was different, or was she different because we excluded her? If we had taken her in as one of our own—I think that is what she would be today. If we had fed, clothed, and loved her, invited her into our churches and homes, we wouldn’t be prejudiced against her. And I believe she would not be sit­ting here today accused of a crime.

Related Characters: Tom Milton (speaker), Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Jumpin’
Page Number: 340
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 57 Quotes

The Firefly

Luring him was as easy
As flashing valentines.
But like a lady firefly
They hid a secret call to die.

A final touch,
Unfinished;
The last step, a trap.
Down, down he falls,
His eyes still holding mine
Until they see another world.

I saw them change.
First a question,
Then an answer,
Finally an end.

And love itself passing
To whatever it was before it began. A.H.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Tate, Chase Andrews, Amanda Hamilton
Related Symbols: Fireflies
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis: