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6. The Welcome Committee; My White Balloon
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
Maddy lists Olly’s mom’s schedule. She spends her morning on the porch, kisses Olly’s dad goodbye, gardens and discards cigarette butts, and in the evenings, begs Kara and Olly to do their chores before Olly’s dad gets home. Kara, meanwhile, smokes cigarettes in the garden and spends her days on the phone before beginning her chores minutes before her dad gets home. Olly’s dad goes to work during the day and yells at his family for about three hours after his third drink of the evening. Olly’s schedule is unpredictable.
The observations Maddy makes about Olly’s family paint a picture of abuse and fear. Kara’s smoking habit, if not a direct reaction to her dad’s abusive behavior, is at least not something her family is supportive of, given the way her mom spends her day cleaning the butts up out of the yard—presumably so Olly’s dad doesn’t see them.
Themes
