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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Great Gilly Hopkins, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Home
Fantasy, Lies, and Growing Up
Bigotry, Insecurity, and Shared Humanity
The Foster Care System
Summary
Analysis
Agnes is outside Trotter’s house to walk with Gilly to school the next day. Gilly ignores Agnes until Agnes tries to touch her, and then she snaps that she doesn’t want any of the help Agnes has offered. Still, Agnes trails Gilly to school and offers to walk with Gilly every day. Gilly ignores Agnes until they get to school, when Agnes offers her bubblegum. Then, conspiratorially, Agnes points to a girl and says her mom ran away with a sailor, and according to Agnes’s grandma, the girl’s family is “trash.” Gilly promptly asks what Agnes’s grandma has to say about Agnes’s own family. Suddenly anxious, Agnes insists her parents will be back before Christmas and asks if Gilly is mocking her. Blowing a bubble that almost pops in Agnes’s hair, Gilly insists she’d never do that.
Like Gilly, Agnes is a bully who attempts to make herself feel better by making others feel bad. Interestingly, even though Gilly and Agnes’s situations bear many similarities—it becomes clear that Agnes’s parents have abandoned her, just as Courtney left Gilly—Gilly still decides to bully Agnes rather than connect with her. In an even broader sense, the gossip Agnes shares with Gilly suggests that plenty of kids at school here don’t have parents they can rely on, just like Gilly and Agnes.
Themes
In Miss Harris’s class, Gilly focuses. She can’t look dumb in front of these kids, so she plans to work hard until she passes them all. Once she accomplishes that, then she’ll stop trying in school. Teachers usually take it personally and get really angry, and she’d love to make Miss Harris angry. At lunch, Gilly decides to find some use for Agnes, so she sits with her. Agnes observes that they both get free lunch—she has no sense of privacy. To punish Agnes, Gilly says Agnes makes her sick and that she won’t “put up with” Agnes’s “big mouth.” So Agnes should be quiet, both so she doesn’t embarrass herself and so none of her brains fall out her open mouth. Agnes follows Gilly meekly for the rest of the day, until Gilly leaves her at Trotter’s gate.
Gilly’s desire to anger Miss Harris stems both from her racism and from her need to feel in control. Gilly and Agnes’s lunchtime conversation highlights Gilly’s cruelty, specifically that it stems from her own insecurities. Both girls receive free lunch, suggesting they both qualify for assistance programs. Put bluntly, they’re poor—and Gilly is extremely offended that Agnes would say such a thing aloud. So, to put Agnes in her place and ensure that Agnes will never again broadcast Gilly’s financial situation to their school peers, Gilly mercilessly bullies Agnes—and desperate for connection, Agnes caves.
Themes
Upon entering Trotter’s house, Gilly ignores the smell of cookies baking (she’s too smart to be drawn in by food) and hurries upstairs, where she begins to tape her cash to the bottom of a drawer for safekeeping. But William Ernest bursts in without knocking, carrying a tray of milk and cookies. He looks terrified. Sighing, Gilly takes the tray from him and he immediately races away. The cookies are heavenly, and as Gilly eats, she decides to use William Ernest rather than Agnes in her scheme. Pleased with her cleverness, Gilly takes her tray downstairs, smiles at Trotter, and joins William Ernest in front of Sesame Street. She smiles kindly when he glances at her, lets him fetch Mr. Randolph for dinner, and folds him a paper airplane afterward.
Gilly’s sudden about-face in her treatment of William Ernest makes it clear that she does know how to be kind and just chooses not to most of the time. Still, the narration encourages readers to remember that Gilly isn’t genuinely being nice here—she’s trying to lay the groundwork for her to later abuse William Ernest’s trust.
Themes
Gilly suggests she and William Ernest go outside so he can fly the paper airplane. It turns out to be the best plane Gilly has ever folded, and she encourages William Ernest to climb on the porch railing to throw it, supporting him so he doesn’t fall. He throws it into Mr. Randolph’s yard and climbs over the fences to get it. When he praises Gilly’s plane upon his return, she smiles a real smile and praises his throwing technique. When Mr. Randolph and Trotter come outside, William Ernest asks them to watch. Confident now, he climbs the railing himself and throws the plane. Trotter praises Gilly’s plane, but William Ernest repeats that he’s just really good at flying it. Gilly agrees with him.
Seemingly to Gilly’s shock (and everyone else’s), Gilly genuinely enjoys helping William Ernest throw the paper airplane. The fact that William Ernest so quickly develops confidence when Gilly gives him some freedom to do it himself offers some insight into William Ernest’s past: like Gilly, he hasn’t had adult support. But unlike her, he’s become timid instead of mean to cope.
Themes
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As Gilly offers to walk Mr. Randolph home, Trotter gives her a look and thanks Gilly. Gilly is confused. She’s wanted to see the look now on Trotter’s face her entire life—but not from Trotter.
The implication here is that Trotter looks at Gilly with genuine love and/or pride—like a mother would look at her child. Gilly has dreamed of receiving this from Courtney, but the fact that she gets it from Trotter instead suggests that Gilly may have more success focusing on chosen family instead of chasing her absent biological mother.
Themes
