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34. A Tale of Two Maddys; Freedom Card
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 tries to convince Olly to teach her how to do a handstand. He stalks around and grumbles that she’s not strong enough, but eventually relents. He instructs her to squat, shows her how to arrange her arms and hands, and tells her to shift forward. Maddy goes too far and somersaults, which makes Olly laugh. Olly demonstrates again, and for the next hour, Maddy tries and fails again and again. Finally, Olly tells Maddy to close her eyes and imagine she’s in outer space. She tips forward and realizes she did it. Olly applauds her and then agrees to let her try again. Maddy wobbles and Olly steps forward to grab her ankles and steady her. This makes her feel like she’s never been touched before.
To Maddy’s credit, she hasn’t been touched before in the way she’s thinking of—she’s only ever been touched by Mom and Carla, both of whom are touching Maddy to care for her, not because they’re attracted to her like Olly is. That Maddy isn’t really picking up on this again speaks to how sheltered she is, as it doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that the experience of touching a person changes dramatically depending on one’s relationship to them.
Themes
Olly lets Maddy down and they remain standing close to each other. Maddy can’t talk as Olly reaches out and grabs her finger. She puts her hand in his. Olly begins to tell her about how he sees her. Her freckles are beautiful, the way she chews her lips is adorable, and her hair looks like a cloud. He asks what Maddy sees, but she can’t speak. They hold hands until they hear Carla coming. Maddy feels as though she’s being “unmade.” She tells the reader that the upper layers of a person’s skin changes completely every two weeks. In two weeks, the skin of her hand won’t remember Olly, but her brain will remember forever.
Choosing to hold hands with Olly represents a drastic step toward independence for Maddy, which is one of the reasons she suggests that she’s being “unmade” here. In this sense, she’s entering a phase in which she begins to break down her old identity as Mom’s daughter and a sick teen, and begins to add other elements as she sees fit. All of this will ultimately propel her toward a more fully-formed adult identity.
Themes
