Analysis

In this chapter, Theo’s new life is described in intimate ways. He seeks refuge at the Barbours’ home, where they treat him like their own child. However, Theo is still in pain due to his mother’s death. In this chapter, Tartt uses parenthesis to mark Theo’s most intimate and painful moments. A parenthesis is a literary device that allows an individual’s pain to be contained for eliminated from the action of a narrative.

The chapter also makes repeated references to art and culture. There is a reference to the art of Salvador Dalf, crime movies, Star Trek, paintings, poetry, plays, and sailing. These references amplify the place of art in modern societies while creating an important context in which Theo discerns the circumstances around him. A new way of looking at the world is important since his beloved mother has died, and his unreliable father having disappeared. An absence of artistic and cultural references would otherwise have placed Theo in an unfamiliar world — a world where there is no common language between Theo and the significant others around him.

The significance of the Mr. Welty’s words is also highlighted in this chapter. Here, Theo comes across the shop that bears the exact name and green door bell, as shouted-out by the dying old man. Theo recalls the instruction, that he should ring the green bell outside the shop named “Hobart and Blackwell”. After getting acquainted with Hobie, Theo later learns that Mr. Welty was Hobie’s business partner at the shop.