Previous
Chapter 5
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
Gilly catches up with her classmates midway through October. It doesn’t seem like it’s bothering Miss Harris enough to have to give hateful Gilly such good grades, though, so Gilly isn’t ready to perform her usual trick of suddenly doing nothing. That trick is what caused Mrs. Nevins to ask the agency to move Gilly—Gilly stopped working in school after she got the highest score in school history on an aptitude test. Miss Harris seems different and more self-assured, while also keeping her true emotions a secret. Sometimes, Gilly appreciates believing that Miss Harris is impartial, and that she’s actually earning her grades. However, Gilly isn’t used to teachers treating her like every other student. She’s used to being in charge, and it’s maddening some days to feel like she’s turning in work to an emotionless robot.
Miss Harris offers Gilly something different than she’s ever had before: a teacher who seems to let students take responsibility of their own education. It’s a sign that things are beginning to change for Gilly that she can appreciate, at least sometimes, that she’s in control here, even if she’s not in control purely because she’s irritating her teachers. Her pressing desire to basically one-up Miss Harris speaks to how desperately she believes that hurting others is the only way for her to genuinely feel good.
Themes
More than anything, Gilly comes to feel like she’d like to force Miss Harris to break down in anger. She just doesn’t know how, given how emotionless her teacher seems. The idea comes to Gilly one evening as she’s listening to the news and hears that a government official said something offensive to Black people. Now, many in the country, Black and some White people, are enraged. Gilly borrows money for school supplies and sets to work making a greeting card. She cuts out and pastes a picture of a Black woman on the front, and then she crafts a joke poem. The unwritten but implied punchline is the n-word. Gilly is certain it’s the funniest thing she’s ever written.
Gilly’s racism—and her glee as she crafts this horrible card—are horrifying, but it again speaks to the depths of her pain and insecurity. Turning to slurs (as she’s done with Mr. Randolph, William Ernest, and Trotter) is basically a shortcut for her to cause a lot of shock and harm very quickly. In other words, she thinks that if she can view other people as inferior, then it will make her feel superior by contrast. The fact that Gilly thinks her poem is genuinely humorous reflects terribly on the adults who have thus far been in charge of her care—nobody has effectively corrected her or taught her kindness.
Themes
The next morning, Gilly sneaks the card into Miss Harris’s math book. She then spends her entire day waiting for Miss Harris to find the card and lose control—but Miss Harris never does, and she borrows a student’s math book during the math lesson. By the end of the day, Gilly is enraged. But then Miss Harris calls Gilly to stay after class. Once they’re alone, Miss Harris says the two of them are a lot alike: they’re both smart, but more importantly, they’re both extremely angry. Miss Harris has always been taught to ignore her anger, so she says she actually envies Gilly, who has a relationship with her anger. Miss Harris says that mostly, she’d like to thank Gilly for her card, as it led her to “curse[] creatively” during lunch, and that felt amazing. Gilly races home, cursing.
Rather than blow up at Gilly, as Gilly expects, Miss Harris treats Gilly more like an equal, leveling with her and (at least based on what Miss Harris says) not letting Gilly’s racism really get to her. Bullies thrive on causing pain and discomfort in other people, but Miss Harris is refusing to let Gilly have that satisfaction. She also identifies clearly that Gilly is motivated by rage, which the novel suggests, in turn, stems from Gilly’s fear of abandonment and of being powerless and vulnerable. Gilly seems to take offense to the fact that Miss Harris seems so aware of what motivates Gilly—again, Gilly isn’t used to adults actually being perceptive or caring, so rather than feeling like Miss Harris’s insight is a good thing, it feels threatening.
Themes
