The Things She's Seen

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Part 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 6: “Catching”

Part 6, Chapter 17 Summary: “The Two”

Speaking in verse, Catching explains that although people can usually remember the past or imagine the future, she felt trapped in the present when she was being held in the underground room. Paralyzed by the drugs that her captors gave her, she was helpless to resist when the Fetchers carried her to the Feed again. This time, there was something different about the Feed, but she did not know what it was. Her mind shut down because of the pain.

Later, in the room with Crow again, she saw that her whole arm and hand had turned gray. She and Crow recited the names of her matrilineal ancestors, and this time, Crow added her own list of the important people in her life. Crow ended the recitation by stating, “Me. You. Us” (149). The Fetchers surprised Catching by coming again just hours later. This time, she realized what was different about the Feed. His eyes were not mirrors but were instead “chips of brown stone” (150). Now she knew that there were two Feeds, not just one.

Part 6, Chapter 18 Summary: “The Dream”

Catching does not know how long she was held in the underground room. One day, she woke to find Crow crying over her. Crow said that Catching’s color was almost gone. Catching closed her eyes to shut out the sight of her own gray body and asked Crow to recite the names again. She drifted into a dream in which she walked on a green hill covered in multi-colored flowers. She followed the sound of laughter to a group of girls sitting together in a circle. They asked why she was not with Crow and told her that Crow was “fighting the wrong/ fight” because “You can’t fight feeling with not-feeling” (152). Catching realized that these were the dead girls who were captured before her. When they told her that she was nearly dead herself, she was torn between not wanting to die and wanting to give up and join the girls in this pretty place. The wind rose and slammed into Catching, lifting her into the sky. One of the girls told Catching, “If you can name it, you can catch it. If you can catch it, you can fight it. Everything has its opposite” (153).

When Catching woke up again, Crow was distraught. She had roused Catching from her near-death state and instantly regretted it, as she felt that letting Catching slip into death would have been merciful. Catching laughed to realize that Crow, who had been urging her to become a dead girl from the start, was the one who had just saved her life. Catching finally stopped laughing when she noticed Crow’s hair starting to turn black again. The two girls realized that colors are not always lost forever. Crow ripped at the black strands in her hair, saying that she needed to be a dead gray girl and did not want to feel things again. She blamed Catching for causing this change. Catching tried to stop Crow from ripping out her hair; Crow accidentally injured Catching in the struggle and was astonished to realize that she could interact with the physical world again.

Catching realized that although Crow was changing, she herself was still gray. She decided that the way to fight her own gray was to identify each terrible feeling and counter it with its opposite. She forced herself to think about the first attack and the despair she felt. When she “caught” this feeling, a patch of gray on her arm lightened. She struggled to counter despair with hope until she remembered the story of her great-great-grandmother, Trudy Catching. Her mother told her that Trudy held onto her identity despite the terrible things that happened when whites first came to her homeland. Catching recited the list of ancestors again and felt her own strength and hope returning, along with some of her color. She told Crow that they would catch and eliminate their gray and then find a way to stop the Feed.

Part 6, Chapter 19 Summary: “The Catching”

Catching relates that Crow sat in the corner, repeating all of the things she told Catching when Catching first arrived—that Catching must become a dead girl, that they are powerless, and that no one gets away from the Feed. Only this time, she laughed, and Catching realized that Crow was “[l]aughing off lies” (160) to eliminate her own gray. One by one, Catching “caught” and counteracted her negative emotions. Catching realized that she could not measure time passing with clocks or the sun, but she could measure progress through her own choices. Over and over, she had to choose “the opposite of gray” (161).

Part 6, Chapter 20 Summary: “The Escape”

Catching ends her story by describing her final day of captivity. When the Fetchers came in for her, Crow launched an attack, and Catching joined in. When they dislodged the Fetchers’ masks, they found only emptiness where their faces should be. Catching and Crow heard one of the Feeds running toward the room, so they quickly ran out the still-open door. Catching wanted to flee, but Crow reminded her that their plan was to stop the Feed for good. Catching thought that a piece of gray was still buried deep inside her, causing her fear. She stopped herself from running and faced the Feed. “You’re shame” (164), she said, naming the last negative emotion. She told the Feed that this piece of gray belonged to him. Frightened of her and Crow, he began to run.

Eventually, he reached a dead end and used a hatch to escape above ground. Catching and Crow followed. They found him inside a cage filled with colorful birds that pleaded with Catching and Crow to set them free. Crow’s hair rose up and began to flap like wings, creating a wind that ripped the cage’s door off. The birds flew away, and Catching and Crow stepped inside. The Feed fell to his knees and transformed into a man. He was terrified, but Catching took no pleasure in his fear. She simply understood that she and Crow had a duty to stop him for good. She told him that he was unimportant: just a bad man they would never think of again. Crow began to dance, and the world exploded.

Part 6 Analysis

The conclusion of Catching’s story demonstrates her courage and reveals The Role of the Community in Healing Grief, for she and Crow work together to escape the underground room and exact justice against their tormentors. The girls’ joint struggle to overcome the spiritual oppression of their situation is key to their escape, for when Crow adds the names of people important to her to Catching’s recitation of her ancestors’ names, this development suggests that Catching’s strength has in turn strengthened Crow. Prior to Catching’s arrival, Crow had become so deeply mired in despair that she failed to conceive of any other life beyond her self-appointed purpose of coaching each new victim to accept the inevitability of their death. However, Catching’s spirit of resistance is contagious, and Crow begins to change. Her firm statement—”Me. You. Us” (149)—demonstrates her newfound belief that she can emulate the bravery of Catching and her ancestors. Thus, it is clear that both girls clearly understand the vital importance of Finding a Voice through Storytelling.

Catching’s dream of the dead girls gives her the insight she needs to escape the Feed, and even more importantly, her realization that every emotion “has its opposite” (153) proves to be an important lesson for Beth and her family as well. In order to move on, Beth’s loved ones must accept that life consists of both joy and pain. This idea is also connected to an earlier statement by one of Beth’s aunts that Beth’s life must be remembered with both sorrow and laughter. Likewise, when Catching laughs at the irony that the person who urged her to accept death (Crow) is the one to save her life, she recognizes that life can be inherently paradoxical. As both Crow and Catching reject the lies and oppression of their captors, they eliminates the Fetchers’ power, and their gray shading recedes before the advancement of their own newfound hope and inner strength.

Catching’s encounter with the Feeds’ previous victims also highlights the significance of her name, for they tell her, “If you can name it, you can catch it” (153). This sentiment articulates the idea that “catching” feelings and mastering them is an important goal for her. Crow’s first words to Catching when she wakes reinforce the importance of Catching’s last name; Crow calls her “Isobel-the-Catching” (153) instead of just “Isobel.” Even the structure of the novel emphasizes this point, given that the next chapter of Catching’s narrative is explicitly labeled “The Catching” and outlines her defiant process of naming and thereby “catching” each negative emotion and supplants it with a positive memory that will allow her to regain her color and her hope.

Significantly, Chapter 20—“The Escape”—allegorically explains what happened on the night of the fire at the children’s home and gives Beth and Michael vital clues to the mystery, creating a fantastical version of the climax that Beth’s more down-to-earth, detective-style narrative will later clarify in real-world terms. Although she still uses the arcane terms of “Fetchers” and “Feed,” Catching essentially explains that she and Crow attacked Cavanagh and Flint, then pursued Sholt out of the underground bunker and into the children’s home. She portrays the children as trapped birds who begged her and Crow to free them from their cage. Her description of Crow’s hair beating the air like wings and causing a great wind explains one element of the children’s story that has puzzled Beth and Michael: the children’s insistence that the wind warned them to escape the home before the fire alarm went off. By the end of Catching’s coded story, she and Crow have cornered Sholt and are determined to end his reign of terror once and for all. Although Catching simply tells Beth and Michael that Crow danced and everything exploded, Beth and Michael will eventually infer that this description is an oblique reference to the beginning of the fire and to the death of Alex Sholt.