WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING

TAKEAWAYS

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We should do what we can to help those in need.

 

• Mrs. Singletary, the clerk of the Piggly Wiggly market, secretly gave Kya more change (at her expense) when Kya couldn’t count coins. Then later, she teaches Kya the value of each coin.

 

• Jumpin’ and Mabel give Kya gas, clothes, and money (in exchange for mussels and fish whenever she can bring some). Later on, Mabel comforts Kya when she gets her period and is confused.

 

• Tate patiently teaches Kya how to read, introduces her to poetry, and gives her science textbooks.

 

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We should always strive to keep learning (but it helps when we are encouraged by friends).

 

Kya was motivated to learn to read from Tate since he didn’t mock her when she didn’t know what “cab” meant and he made big words less scary (since they’re just small words bunched together). Because of this, Kya was able to fulfill her potential.

 

“On every trip to Kya’s, Tate took school or library books, especially on marsh creatures and biology. Her progress was starting. She could read anything now, he said, and once you can read anything you can learn everything. It was up to her. ‘Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,’ he said. ‘We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves’” (131).

 

“Kya remembered Ma always encouraging her to explore the marsh: ‘Go as far as you can -- way out yonder where the crawdads sing” (111).

 

“Of all the gossip, no one mentioned that the Marsh Girl, the girl who couldn’t spell dog, knew the Latin names of shells, where they occurred” (160).

 

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A “true man” is one who isn’t afraid to defend a woman or feel the emotion behind poetry.

 

• Pa is depicted as a coward.​

  • When the Great Depression hit, Pa stole his family’s treasures to court Ma.

  • When Jake’s sergeant got shot in WWI, all the men in Jake’s troop rushed to the sergeant's aid except for him. Jake cowered in the corner, too scared to move. At that moment, a grenade exploded, shattering the bone in Jake’s leg. Everyone assumed that Jake was also helping the sergeant, so he was declared a hero and received a medal and medical discharge (even though Jake knew that he was actually a coward).

 

• Jodie is depicted as a good man.

  • Growing up, Jodie protected Ma from Pa’s violent rage one Easter morning (which left Jodie’s face scarred).

  • Jodie blamed himself for leaving little Kya alone with a monster of a father, but he did what he had to do (by leaving for the city to work odd jobs until the army accepted him).

 

• Tate is depicted as a good man (even though he went through a cowardly phase).

  • When Pa hit 3-year-old Kya, 7-year-old Tate ran to her rescue.

  • When Kya borrowed Pa’s boat (without permission) and got lost, Tate guided her all the way back to her shack (even though there was a storm coming and her father had warned him to no longer step foot on their property).

  • When Tate first comes back from college, he goes to visit Kya (like he promised), but once he observes how uncivilized she looks (and how unlikely she is to fit into the world he’s pursuing), he cowardly leaves before she notices him (without saying goodbye or giving her an explanation).

 

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Once trust is lost, it can be hard to regain it. But some good things that result from love will always remain.

 

“Let’s face it, a lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections. Look at us; you and I have each other now, and just think, if I have kids and you have kids, well, that’s a whole new string of connections. And on it goes” (242).

 

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Our desires can cause us to lose sight of other priorities.

 

• When Tate was young, he really wanted one particular kind of bike (which wasn’t in stock at the local bike shop) for his birthday. His mom and sister got in a car wreck and died while driving out of town to buy that bike. Years later, Tate forgot what that bike was even supposed to look like.

 

• Tate was so focused on getting Kya back that he didn’t pay attention to his father’s declining health (until he passed away soon after Kya’s murder trial).

 

“Had he not been so obsessed with his own heart, perhaps he would have noticed his father’s failing” (356).

 

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There’s a difference between love and lust.

 

• Tate loves Kya for who she is, and he restrains himself from taking advantage of her.

 

• Chase is after Kya’s beauty and wild side. Chase doesn’t understand Kya’s fascination with the marsh, and he doesn’t always respect her boundaries. He baits Kya with false pretexts of marriage to get her to give herself away to him. She wonders why he never takes her to dances or dinners with his family or friends, but he makes excuses (so that he can date other women without her knowing).

 

“Her mind looking one way, her desire the other. Her body watched Chase Andrews, not her heart… She tried to force herself to avoid that beach and stick to the marsh, searching for bird nests and feathers. Stay safe, feeding grits to gulls. Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size. But loneliness has a compass of its own” (150-151).

 

"Somewhere within, she worried she was also a piece of beach art, a curiosity to be turned over in his hands, then tossed back on the sand” (159).

 

“A simple hope of being with someone, of actually being wanted, of being touched, had drawn her in. But these hurried groping hands were only a taking, not a sharing or giving” (162).

 

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America used to be so biased towards white men (and prejudiced towards females, minorities, and those of poor economic class) that the justice system used to be out of whack.

 

When Chase tries to force himself on Kya after she learns of his engagement to Pearl, Kya has to fight with all her strength to get away. During this struggle, Chase hit her so hard that her left eye got swollen shut. She tried to avoid any encounters with people until she fully healed (and used the excuse that she ran into a door if anyone did see her), but she confided to Jumpin’ about her situation. Jumpin’ tries to get her to report her harassment to the sheriff, but Kya explains that doing that probably wouldn’t do any good since the sheriff would probably victim-blame, siding with the popular quarterback over the poor white girl (similar to what would happen if a black girl would try to report of attempted rape).

 

During her trial, many people looked at the circumstantial evidence through their prejudiced lens (and relied on theories, which you shouldn’t do when the death penalty is involved).

 

• The absence of footprints and fingerprints COULD be seen as someone covering up evidence, OR the ground could have been hard during low tide when Chase climbed up the fire tower and have become wet (with all prints naturally wiped away) during high tide.

 

• The gates COULD have been left open by Chase’s murderer, OR they could have been left open from kids playing around (which had prompted the sheriff to push for legislature to make it illegal to play on the fire tower just 3 months before Chase’s death, due to the likelihood for serious injury or death).

 

• The red threads on Chase’s coat that matched Kya’s borrowed hat from Tate COULD have been evidence that Kya was with him the night he died, OR they could have gotten on his coat from any of their previous encounters.

 

• A couple fishermen saw a boat that COULD have been Kya’s (with someone who looked like Kya inside), OR they could have been mistaken (since after all, it was night time and the boat was 60 yards away and the boat’s lights were off).

 

• The bus schedule lined up where Kya COULD have bused to the fire tower at night after meeting with her book publisher in Greenville, OR she could have only bused to Greenville and back at the daylight times, when she was publicly spotted by manyl.

 

• The bus driver said there was a man wearing a bulky hat of about her size boarding the night bus who COULD have been Kya in disguise (and an old lady on the return trip who COULD have been another disguise), OR the idea of disguises could have been planted by the persecution.

 

• Kya COULD have preferred the basic motel in her all-expense-paid trip because it made for an easy get-a-way via bus at night, OR she could have preferred something in the outskirts of Greenville to avoid large crowds.

 

• Kya COULD have snuck out of her hotel room (right across from the receptionist’s desk) when the hotel manager was too busy doing work to notice, OR she could have stayed in her hotel room all night.

 

Kya’s lawyer (Tom) encouraged the jurors to look past any prejudices.

 

“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. The job of judging this shy, rejected woman has fallen on your shoulders, but you must base that judgment on the facts presented in this case, in this courtroom, not on rumors or feelings from the past twenty-four years. …Even though she only went to school one day in her life -- because the other children harassed her -- she educated herself and became a well-known naturalist and author. We called her the Marsh Girl; now scientific institutions recognize her as the Marsh Expert… It’s time, at last, for us to be fair to the Marsh Girl” (340-341).

 

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Even though people have more complex emotions and senses of morality than animals, we sometimes do what we have to do to survive.

 

• Kya compared Ma leaving to a fox leaving its babies if it’s injured (before it and its babies all die).

 

• Kya lured Chase up to the fire tower through seduction (and then killed him) similar to how a female firefly changes its light pattern to attract (then kill) a male firefly of a different tribe, or how a female praying mantis kills a male praying mantis while mating.

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