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41. The Third Maddy
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 wakes up to yelling in her house. Mom berates Carla for letting a stranger into the house and refuses to let Maddy defend Carla. Mom fires Carla, and Maddy sobs as Carla packs her things. She gives Carla her copy of Flowers for Algernon, and Carla tells Maddy to be brave. She reminds Maddy that life is a gift and that she should live it. Mom sees Carla out the door. Maddy defines asymptote as a wish that continually gets closer, but never comes true.
Carla’s parting words to Maddy are a tacit endorsement of Maddy continuing to figure out who she is separate from Mom and her identity as a sick person—in other words, Carla suggests that Maddy should continue seeing Olly. In doing this, she again reads as an adult who’s aware that teens naturally move away from their parents and toward their peers as they grow.
Themes
