Previous
Pages 121–131
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Once, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling
Innocence and Ignorance
Antisemitism vs. Human Dignity
Family
Morality, Violence, and Complicity
Summary
Analysis
In bed that night, Felix thinks how he used to “love stories” but now loathes them. He especially hates stories about God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other powers that are supposed to protect people; about the countryside; and about parents who claim they’ll return for their children but don’t. He thinks his parents would “have been better off with guns” instead of books.
Felix rejected stories the first time when he realized how much danger the Nazis posed to him and his parents. Afterward, he decided stories might still be useful for finding his parents and started telling them again. Now that he’s losing hope in his parents’ survival, he rejects stories again. The stories that he particularly loathes are those that give people false expectations about the world: stories about powerful protectors, which make people feel safe when they aren’t. He compares stories to “guns” and decides guns would be more helpful. Felix’s comparison suggests that while he values stories as a survival tool, he doesn’t think they’re particularly effective.
Themes
Zelda comes over and asks whether Felix’s parents are dead too. When he doesn’t reply, she puts her silver necklace around his neck as a gift “to make [him] feel better.” Felix, hating having feelings, wishes he were like a murderous, emotionless Nazi. When Zelda pets Felix’s hair, he realizes that she’s running an extreme temperature. She faints, and Felix yells for Barney.
Presumably Zelda received her silver necklace from her parents, as a little girl wouldn’t be able to buy her own jewelry. That she gives Felix a gift from her dead parents “to make [him] feel better” shows how much she cares for him and implies that she views him as family.
Themes
Though reluctant to send Felix out alone, Barney doesn’t want to leave Zelda and needs aspirin to lower her temperature. He tells Felix to go get aspirin from the apartment where they were last night—or some other apartment if he’s afraid to return to that one. Felix realizes that Barney is avoiding saying that Zelda will die if her temperature doesn’t drop; he resolves to get her the aspirin and “something else.”
Felix is willing to risk his life to save Zelda’s, which shows not only his goodness and bravery—qualities Nazi antisemitism would deny he has—but also the quasi-familial love he has developed for her. His resolve to get “something else” for Zelda in addition to aspirin foreshadows that Felix won’t follow Barney’s instructions exactly and may encounter danger as a result.
Themes
In the streets, Felix sees Nazi trucks and soldiers and hears gunfire. He finds aspirin in one apartment but keeps searching apartments for something else. In the last apartment, he prays to “God, Jesus, Mary, and the Pope”—and finds a carrot, which he believes “will help Zelda just as much as the aspirin.”
Though Felix was just expressing his hatred of stories about God, he prays to “God, Jesus, Mary, and the Pope” to help him in his quest for Zelda. This change of heart suggests that people rely on stories for bravery in difficult situations. It’s not entirely clear why Felix thinks a carrot “will help Zelda just as much as the aspirin,” but given that carrots have represented wishes and hope throughout the novel, it’s possible that Felix believes hope is as important to survival as medicine.
Themes
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In the apartment, Felix discovers a bedroom that looks very much like his old one, containing Richmal Crompton’s Just William. He reads a bit about William’s poorly behaved but lovable mixed-breed dog, Jumble, and remembers how his parents promised he could have a dog at some point. He sits on the floor, reading and crying, until he falls asleep.
Though Felix cares about Zelda very much, memories of his parents promising him a dog sufficiently distract him that he delays getting her the aspirin and falls asleep in a dangerous location. Felix’s distraction shows how important his parents continue to be to him even as he forms familial bonds with new people like Zelda and Barney.
Themes
Felix wakes up in the dark and hears a growling dog and Nazis searching the apartment. He knocks the books off the bookshelf and hides under them. Someone opens the bedroom door and passes a flashlight over the books, but then the noises of dogs and soldiers diminish. Felix climbs out from under the books, grabs Just William, and runs. On the stairs, he trips and falls. A Nazi with a flashlight sees him, takes Just William from him, and looks at Zelda’s silver heart locket—which Felix’s fall busted open.
Though Felix loves stories, he doesn’t hold books as objects sacred—he’s perfectly willing to use them as tools for survival in ways that have nothing to do with their story content. Here, for example, he hides under a pile of books to escape Nazis. Yet he does make sure to take Just William with him, which shows both his love of books and his desire to stay connected to his parents (who introduced him to Just William). The Nazi soldier’s focus on Zelda’s locket, meanwhile, suggests there’s something important about it.
Themes
The Nazi heads back into an apartment and yells to someone. Felix runs out the gate and into the alleyways behind the apartment building. Once he finds an empty street, he examines Zelda’s locket. In one half, he sees a photograph of a man and a woman, Zelda’s parents. They’re standing in front of a Polish flag, and the man is wearing a Nazi uniform.
When Felix found Zelda’s parents killed outside their burning house, he assumed they were Jewish people murdered by Nazis. The picture in Zelda’s locket suggests that in fact, her father was a Nazi collaborator. This disturbing revelation makes readers wonder whether Felix and Zelda’s quasi-sibling bond will survive his discovery.
Themes
Felix approaches the street where the printing press is located. He thanks God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Richmal Crompton that he’ll be able to get Zelda her aspirin and carrot soon. Addressing God and the other figures to whom he prays, he tells them that even though Zelda’s father was a Nazi, she should still get aspirin and carrot soup, because she isn’t responsible for her father’s actions and she’s basically Felix’s family now anyway.
Felix has added children’s book author Richmal Crompton to the list of protectors to whom he prays, revealing that he has once again come to think of stories as a powerful survival tool. If carrots represent hope in the novel, the carrot that Felix finds for Zelda represents not only his belief that hope is necessary to survival but also that his own hope that she survives. Felix’s emotional generosity toward Zelda and his acceptance of her into his family, despite her father’s crimes, implicitly contrast his goodness and humanity with the dehumanizing horror of Nazi antisemitism.
Themes
Felix hears dogs, trucks, and soldiers. He peeks around a corner and sees Nazis surrounding the print shop. Trying to think of a way to warn Barney and the children, he hears screaming and realizes he’s run out of time. Deciding “it doesn’t matter anymore” who sees him, he sprints for the others.
When Felix realizes the Nazis have captured Barney and the other children, he runs to join them rather than escaping. His belief that “it doesn’t matter” whether the Nazis see him once they’ve captured the others shows his loyalty and familial devotion to Zelda and Barney.
Themes
