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Chapter 42
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Eleanor and Park, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Adolescence and Shame
Love and Intimacy
Poverty and Class
Family and Abuse
Summary
Analysis
Though Park’s parents rarely fight, on Sunday evening, they spend an hour in their bedroom arguing. Park and Josh wonder what they could be fighting about—and Park is afraid that they somehow found out about what he and Eleanor did all day yesterday. He worries that it will be “months before they [are] alone again.”
Park enjoyed his lazy, sensual afternoon with Eleanor—but has been conditioned to feel shame and anxiety about their search for new forms of intimacy.
Themes
On Monday morning, Eleanor’s guidance counselor, Mrs. Dunne, gives her a new combination lock to put on her gym locker and assures her she and the other teachers are trying to “get to the bottom” of what happened. Eleanor knows from the look Tina gives her each morning on the bus, though, that there is nothing she or anyone can do to stop the bullying. Park, Beebi, and DeNice have all rallied around her, though, in order to show Tina and her crew that Eleanor has friends who have her back.
Eleanor remains pleasantly surprised by the show of support her friends at school show her. The bullying she faces from Tina and the abuse she witnesses Richie dole out often make her feel alone and helpless, but she’s built a strong network of people who care about her.
Themes
After school on Monday, Park is surprised when he sees his mother waiting outside for him in the Impala. Eleanor takes the bus home while Park hops in his mother’s car. She tells him that she is taking him to the DMV to get his license at last. Park asks if his father knows—Mindy says he does, but that it’s none of his “business.” Park passes the test on his first try, and Mindy assures Park she’ll talk some sense into Jamie about letting Park drive—in the meantime, he has the license in case of an “emergency.” The next morning on the bus, Park shows Eleanor his license excitedly. She congratulates him and tells him that she wants a picture of him to keep for herself. He promises to bring her one.
Park is growing up and coming into his own—and the tension between his parents over Park’s getting his license suggests that Jamie and Mindy are each struggling in their own way with the changes in their son. Mindy believes that Park should be allowed to be who he really is, symbolized by her desire to let him get his license without making him prove something—but Jamie, who is strict and principled, has ideas about how Park should move through the world (both literally and metaphorically).
Themes
That evening, at Park’s house, Park gives Eleanor one of his school pictures from October. After dinner, they look through Park’s old yearbooks, and Park tells Eleanor that he wants a picture of her, too. Eleanor doesn’t have one to give Park, so he offers to take one with his mother’s camera.
Eleanor and Park want pictures of one another because they have become, in a way, one another’s talismans against sadness, pain, and loneliness.
Themes
Get the entire Eleanor and Park LitChart as a printable PDF.
That night, when Eleanor gets home from Park’s, she’s in a good mood. Sabrina offers to watch the door for Eleanor while she takes a bath. As Eleanor soaks in the tub, Sabrina tells her about running into a friend whose teen daughter is pregnant—Sabrina tells Eleanor how grateful she is that Eleanor is “so smart about boys.” Sabrina urges Eleanor to keep staying away from boys, no matter what. When Eleanor hears the sound of Richie’s truck pulling into the driveway, she hurries out of the bath and into her bedroom.
This conversation between Eleanor and Sabrina is one of the most frank they have over the course of the novel—even if its foundation is couched in a lie. Sabrina, who has spent years in a partnership with an abusive man, believes all men are dangerous—but Eleanor has come to learn that there are relationships where love, intimacy, and respect are possible.
Themes
